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THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO 

AND 

MOUFFLOU 


"HE    WAS    ONLY    SEVEN    YEARS    OLD,    BIT    HE     LABOURED     AS 
EARNESTLY    AS    IF    HE    WERE     A     MAN    GROWN." 


THE  CHILD  OF  URBINO 

AND 

MOUFFLOU 


BY 

"OUIDA" 


lUustrateti  bg 
ETHELDRED  B.    BARRY 


BOSTON 

DANA   ESTES   &   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  igoo 
By  Dana  Estes  &  Company 


Colonial  press 

Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Simonds  &  Co. 
Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


53^ 


D 


cJL 


ILLUSTRATIONS, 


PAGE 

"  He  was  only  seven  years  old,  but  he  laboured  as 

EARNESTLY  AS  IF  HE  WERE  A  MAN  GROWN  "    Frontispiece 

Raffaelle  and  Pacifica  in  THE  Garden         .         .     29 

"'I    PAINTED     IT,'    HE     SAID,    WITH     A     PLEASED     SMILE. 

'I,  Raffaelle'" 41 

In  Front  of  the  Church 53 

"He  gathered  Moufflou  up  against   his    breast 

AND  cried  as   if   HE  WOULD    NEVER  STOP  CRYING  "       61 

«  Fleet  as  the  wind  Moufflou  dashed  through 

THE  room" 75 


ivi54S740 


THE  CHILD  OF  URBINO, 


IT  was  in  the  year  of  grace  1490,  in  the  reign  of 
Guidobaldo,  Lord  of  Montefeltro,  Duke  of  Urbino, 
—  the  year,  by  the  way,  of  the  birth  of  that  most 
illustrious  and  gracious  lady  Yittoria  Colonna. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  in  that  mountain- 
eyrie  beloved  of  the  Muses  and  coveted  of  the  Borgia, 
that  a  little  boy  stood  looking  out  of  a  grated  case- 
ment into  the  calm  sunshiny  day.  He  was  a  pretty 
boy,  with  hazel  eyes,  and  fair  hair  cut  straight  above 
his  brows ;  he  wore  a  little  blue  tunic  with  some  em- 
broidery about  the  throat  of  it,  and  had  in  his  hand 
a  little  round  flat  cap  of  the  same  colour.  He  was 
sad  of  heart  this  merry  morning,  for  a  dear  friend  of 
his,  a  friend  ten  years  older  than  himself,  had  gone 
the  night  before  on  a  journey  over  the  mountains  to 
Maestro  Francesco  at  Bologna,  there  to  be  bound  ap- 
prentice to  that  gentle  artist.  This  friend,  Timoteo 
della  Yita,  had  been  very  dear  to  the  child,  had  played 
with  him  and  jested  with  him,  made  him  toys  and 
told  him  stories,  and  he  was  very  full  of  pain  at  Ti- 
moteo's  loss.  Yet  he  told  himself  not  to  mind,  for  had 
not  Timoteo  said  to  him,  "  I  go  as  goldsmith's  'pren- 

11 


12  THE  CHILD   OF  UBBINO. 

tice  to  the  best  of  men;  but  I  mean  to  become  a 
painter "  ?  And  the  child  understood  that  to  be  a 
painter  was  to  be  the  greatest  and  wisest  the  world 
held ;  he  quite  understood  that,  for  he  was  Raffaelle, 
the  seven-jear-old  son  of  Signer  Giovanni  Sanzio. 

He  was  a  very  happy  little  boy  here  in  this  stately 
yet  homely  and  kindly  Urbino,  where  his  people  had 
come  for  refuge  when  the  lances  of  Malatesta  had 
ravaged  and  ruined  their  homestead.  He  had  the 
dearest  old  grandfather  in  all  the  world ;  he  had  a 
loving  mother,  and  he  had  a  father  who  was  very  ten- 
der to  him,  and  painted  him  among  the  angels  of 
heaven,  and  was  always  full  of  pleasant  conceits  and 
admirable  learning,  and  such  true  love  of  art  that  the 
child  breathed  it  with  every  breath,  as  he  could  breathe 
the  sweetness  of  a  cowslip-bell  when  he  held  one  in 
his  hand  up  to  his  nostrils. 

It  was  good  in  those  days  to  live  in  old  Urbino.  It 
was  not,  indeed,  so  brilliant  a  place  as  it  became  in  a 
later  day,  when  Ariosto  came  there,  and  Bembo  and 
Castiglione  and  many  another  witty  and  learned  gentle- 
man, and  the  Courts  of  Love  were  held  with  ingenious 
rhyme  and  pretty  sentiment,  sad  only  for  wantonness. 
But,  if  not  so  brilliant,  it  was  homelier,  simpler,  full 
of  virtue,  with  a  wise  peace  and  tranquillity  that 
joined  hands  with  a  stout  courage.  The  burgher  was 
good  friends  with  his  prince,  and  knew  that  in  any 
trouble  or  perplexity  he  could  go  up  to  the  palace,  or 
stop  the  duke  in  the  market-place,  and  be  sure  of 
sympathy  and  good  counsel.     There  were  a  genuine 


THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO.  13 

love  of  beautiful  things,  a  sense  of  public  duty  and  of 
public  spirit,  a  loyal  temper  and  a  sage  contentment, 
among  the  good  people  of  that  time,  which  made  them 
happy  and  prosperous. 

All  work  was  solidly  and  thoroughly  done,  living 
was  cheap,  and  food  good  and  plentiful,  much  better 
and  more  plentiful  than  it  is  now ;  in  the  fine  old 
houses  every  stone  was  sound,  every  bit  of  ornament 
well  wrought,  men  made  their  nests  to  live  in  and  to 
pass  to  their  children  and  children's  children  after 
them,  and  had  their  own  fancies  and  their  own  tradi- 
tions recorded  in  the  iron-work  of  their  casements  and 
in  the  wood-work  of  their  doors.  They  had  their 
happy  day  of  honest  toil  from  matins  bell  to  even-song, 
and  then  walked  out  or  sat  about  in  the  calm  evening 
air,  and  looked  down  on  the  plains  below  that  were 
rich  with  grain,  and  fruit,  and  woodland,  and  talked 
and  laughed  among  each  other,  and  were  content  with 
their  own  pleasant,  useful  lives,  not  burnt  up  with 
envy  of  desire  to  be  some  one  else,  as  in  our  sickly, 
hurrying  time  most  people  are. 

Yes,  life  must  have  been  very  good  in  those  old 
days  in  old  Urbino,  better  than  it  is  anywhere  in 
ours. 

Can  you  not  picture  to  yourself  good,  shrewd,  wise 
Giovanni  Sanzio,  with  his  old  father  by  his  side,  and 
his  little  son  running  before  him,  in  the  holy  evening 
time  of  a  feast-day,  with  the  deep  church-bells  swaying 
above-head,  and  the  last  sun-rays  smiting  the  frescoed 
walls,  the  stone  bastions,  the  blazoned  standard  on  the 


14  THE  CHILD   OF  UBBINO. 

castle  roof,  the  steep  city  rocks  shelving  down  into  the 
greenery  of  cherry-orchard  and  of  pear-tree  ?  I  can, 
whenever  I  shut  my  eyes  and  recall  Urbino  as  it 
was;  and  would  it  had  been  mine  to  live  then  in 
that  mountain-home,  and  meet  that  divine  child 
going  along  his  happy,  smiling  way,  garnering  un- 
consciously in  his  infant  soul  all  the  beautiful  sights 
and  sounds  around  him,  to  give  them  in  his  manhood 
to  the  world. 

"  Let  him  alone :  he  will  paint  all  this  some  day," 
said  his  wise  father,  who  loved  to  think  that  his 
brushes  and  his  colours  would  pass  in  time  to  Raffa- 
elle,  whose  hands  would  be  stronger  to  hold  them 
than  his  own  had  been.  And,  whether  he  would  ever 
paint  it  or  not,  the  child  never  tired  of  thus  looking 
from  his  eyrie  on  the  rocks  and  counting  all  that 
passed  below  through  the  blowing  corn  under  the  leafy 
orchard  boughs. 

There  were  so  many  things  to  see  in  Urbino  in  that 
time,  looking  so  over  the  vast  green  valley  below :  a 
clump  of  spears,  most  likely,  as  men-at-arms  rode 
through  the  trees  ;  a  string  of  market-folk  bringing 
in  the  produce  of  the  orchards  or  the  fields  ;  perchance 
a  red-robed  cardinal  on  a  white  mule  with  glittering 
housings,  behind  him  a  sumpter-train  rich  with  bag- 
gage, furniture,  gold  and  silver  plate ;  maybe  the 
duke's  hunting-party  going  out  or  coming  homeward 
with  caracoling  steeds,  beautiful  hounds  straining  at 
their  leash,  hunting-horns  sounding  merrily  over  the 
green  country ;  maybe  a  band  of  free  lances,  with 


THE  GUILD   OF  URBINO.  15 

plumes  tossing,  steel  glancing,  bannerets  fluttering 
against  the  sky ;  or  maybe  a  quiet  gray -robed  string 
of  monks  or  pilgrims  singing  the  hymn  sung  before 
Jerusalem,  treading  the  long  lush  grass  with  sandalled 
feet,  coming  toward  the  city,  to  crowd  slowly  and 
gladly  up  its  rocky  height.  Do  you  not  wish  with 
me  you  could  stand  in  the  window  with  Raffaelle  to 
see  the  earth  as  it  was  then  ? 

No  doubt  the  good  folks  of  Urbino  laughed  at  him 
often  for  a  little  moonstruck  dreamer,  so  many  hours 
did  he  stand  looking,  looking,  —  only  looking,  —  as 
eyes  have  a  right  to  do  that  see  well  and  not  altogether 
as  others  see. 

Happily  for  him,  the  days  of  his  childhood  were 
times  of  peace,  and  he  did  not  behold,  as  his  father 
had  done,  the  torches  light  up  the  street  and  the 
flames  devour  the  homesteads. 

At  this  time  Urbino  was  growing  into  fame  for 
its  pottery-work:  those  big  dishes  and  bowls,  those 
marriage-plates  and  pharmacy-jars,  which  it  made, 
were  beginning  to  rival  the  products  of  its  neighbour 
Gubbio,  and  when  its  duke  wished  to  send  a  bridal 
gift,  or  a  present  on  other  festal  occasions,  he  oftenest 
chose  some  service  or  some  rare  platter  of  his  own 
Urbino  ware.  Now,  pottery  had  not  then  taken  the 
high  place  among  the  arts  of  Italy  that  it  was  destined 
very  soon  to  do.  As  you  will  learn  when  you  are 
older,  after  the  Greeks  and  the  Christians  had  ex- 
hausted all  that  was  beautiful  in  shape  and  substance 
of   clay  vases,  the   art  seemed  to  die  out,  and  the 


16  THE  CHILD   OF   UBBINO. 

potters  and  the  pottery-painters  died  with  it,  or  at 
any  rate  went  to  sleep  for  a  great  many  centuries, 
whilst  soldiers  and  prelates,  nobles  and  mercenaries, 
were  trampling  to  and  fro  all  over  the  land  and 
disputing  it,  and  carrying  fire  and  torch,  steel  and 
desolation,  with  them  in  their  quarrels  and  covetous- 
ness.  But  now,  the  reign  of  the  late  good  duke,  great 
Federigo,  having  been  favourable  to  the  Marches  (as 
we  call  his  province  now),  the  potters  and  pottery- 
painters,  with  other  gentle  craftsmen,  had  begun  to 
look  up  again,  and  the  beneficent  fires  of  their  humble 
ovens  had  begun  to  burn  in  Castel  Durante,  in  Pesaro, 
in  Faenza,  in  Gubbio,  and  in  Urbino  itself.  The  great 
days  had  not  yet  come :  Maestro  Giorgio  was  but  a 
youngster,  and  Orazio  Fontane  not  born,  nor  the 
clever  baker  Prestino  either,  nor  the  famous  Fra 
Xanto ;  but  there  was  a  Don  Giorgio  even  then  in 
Gubbio,  of  whose  work,  alas !  one  plate  now  at  the 
Louvre  is  all  we  have ;  and  here  in  the  ducal  city  on 
the  hill  rich  and  noble  things  were  already  being 
made  in  the  stout  and  lustrous  majolica  that  was 
destined  to  acquire  later  on  so  wide  a  ceramic 
fame.  Jars  and  bowls  and  platters,  oval  dishes,  and 
ewers  and  basins,  and  big-bodied,  metal-welded  phar- 
macy-vases were  all  made  and  painted  at  Urbino 
whilst  Raffaelle  Sanzio  was  running  about  on  rosy 
infantine  feet.  There  was  a  master-potter  of  the 
Montefeltro  at  that  time,  one  Maestro  Benedetto 
Ronconi,  whose  name  had  not  become  world-renowned 
as  Orazio  Fontane's  and  Maestro  Giorgio's  did  in  the 


THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO.  17 

following  century,  yet  who  in  that  day  enjoyed  the 
honour  of  all  the  duchy,  and  did  things  very  rare  and 
fine  in  the  Urbino  ware.  He  lived  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  Giovanni  Sanzio,  and  was  a  gray-haired, 
handsome,  somewhat  stern  and  pompous  man,  now 
more  than  middle-aged,  who  had  one  beauteous 
daughter,  by  name  Pacifica.  He  cherished  Pacifica 
well,  but  not  so  well  as  he  cherished  the  things  he 
wrought,  —  the  deep  round  nuptial  plates  and  oval 
massive  dishes  that  he  painted  with  Scriptural  stories 
and  strange  devices,  and  landscapes  such  as  those  he 
saw  around,  and  flowing  scrolls  with  Latin  mottoes 
in  black  letters,  and  which,  when  thus  painted,  he 
consigned  with  an  anxiously  beating  heart  to  the  trial 
of  the  ovens,  and  which  sometimes  came  forth  from 
the  trial  all  cracked  and  blurred  and  marred,  and 
sometimes  emerged  in  triumph  and  came  into  his 
trembling  hands  iridescent  and  lovely  with  those 
lustrous  and  opaline  hues  which  we  admire  in  them 
to  this  day  as  the  especial  glory  of  majolica. 

Maestro  Benedetto  was  an  ambitious  and  vain 
man,  and  had  had  a  hard,  laborious  manhood,  work- 
ing at  his  potter's  wheel  and  painter's  brush  before 
Urbino  ware  was  prized  in  Italy  or  even  in  the  duchy. 
Now,  indeed,  he  was  esteemed  at  his  due  worth,  and 
his  work  was  so  also,  and  he  was  passably  rich,  and 
known  as  a  good  artist  beyond  the  Marches ;  but  there 
was  a  younger  man  over  at  Gubbio,  the  Don  Giorgio 
who  was  precursor  of  unequalled  Maestro  Giorgio 
Andreoli,  who  surpassed  him,  and  made  him   sleep 


18  THE  CHILD   OF   URBINO. 

o'  nights  on  thorns,  as  envy  makes  all  those  to  do 
who  take  her  as  their  bedfellow. 

The  house  of  Maestro  Benedetto  was  a  long  stone 
building,  with  a  loggia  at  the  back  all  overclimbed 
by  hardy  rose-trees,  and  looking  on  a  garden  that 
was  more  than  half  an  orchard,  and  in  which  grew 
abundantly  pear-trees,  plum-trees,  and  wood  straw- 
berries. The  lancet  windows  of  his  workshop  looked 
on  all  this  quiet  greenery.  There  were  so  many  such 
pleasant  workshops  then  in  the  land,  —  calm,  godly, 
homelike  places,  filled  from  without  with  song  of 
birds,  and  scent  of  herbs  and  blossoms.  Nowadays 
men  work  in  crowded,  stinking  cities,  in  close  factory 
chamber^ ;  and  their  work  is  barren  as  their  lives 
are. 

The  little  son  of  neighbour  Sanzio  ran  in  and  out 
this  bigger,  wider  house  and  garden  of  Maestro 
Benedetto  at  his  pleasure,  for  the  maiden  Pacifica 
was  always  glad  to  see  him,  and  even  the  sombre 
master-potter  would  unbend  to  him  and  show  him 
how  to  lay  the  colour  on  to  the  tremulous  fugitive 
unbaked  biscuit. 

Pacifica  was  a  lovely  young  woman  of  some  seven- 
teen or  eighteen  summers ;  and  perhaps  Raffaelle  was 
but  remembering  her  when  he  painted  in  his  after- 
years  the  face  of  his  Madonna  di  San  Sisto.  He 
loved  her  as  he  loved  everything  that  was  beautiful 
and  every  one  who  was  kind ;  and  almost  better  than 
his  own  beloved  father's  studio,  almost  better  than 
his  dear  old  grandsire's  cheerful  little  shop,  did  he 


THE  CHILD   OF   UEBINO.  19 

love  this  grave,  silent,  sweet-smelling,  sun-pierced, 
shadowy  old  house  of  Maestro  Benedetto. 

Maestro  Benedetto  had  four  apprentices  or  pupils 
in  that  time  learning  to  become  figuli^  but  the  one 
whom  Raffaelle  liked  the  most  (and  Pacifica  too) 
was  one  Luca  Torelli,  of  a  village  above  in  the  moun- 
tains,—  a  youth  with  a  noble,  dark,  pensive  beauty  of 
his  own',  and  a  fearless  gait,  and  a  supple,  tall,  slender 
figure  that  would  have  looked  well  in  the  light  coat 
of  mail  and  silken  doublet  of  a  man-at-arms.  In 
sooth,  the  spirit  of  Messer  Luca  was  more  made  for 
war  and  its  risks  and  glories  than  for  the  wheel  and 
the  brush  of  the  bottega;  but  he  had  loved  Pacifica 
ever  since  he  had  come  down  one  careless  holy  day 
into  Urbino,  and  had  bound  himself  to  her  father's 
service  in  a  heedless  moment  of  eagerness  to  breathe 
the  same  air  and  dwell  under  the  same  roof  as  she 
did.  He  had  gained  little  for  his  pains :  to  see  her 
at  mass  and  at  meal-times,  now  and  then  to  be  allowed 
to  bring  water  from  the  well  for  her  or  feed  her 
pigeons,  to  see  her  gray  gown  go  down  between  the 
orchard  trees  and  catch  the  sunlight,  to  hear  the  hum 
of  her  spinning-wheel,  the  thrum  of  her  viol,  —  this 
was  the  uttermost  he  got  of  joy  in  two  long  years ; 
and  how  he  envied  Raffaelle  running  along  the 
stone  floor  of  the  loggia  to  leap  into  her  arms,  to 
hang  upon  her  skirts,  to  pick  the  summer  fruit 
with  her,  and  sort  with  her  the  autumn  herbs  for 
drying ! 

"  I  love  Pacifica  ! "  he  would  say,  with  a  groan,  to 


20  THE   CHILD   OF   UBBINO. 

Raffaelle ;  and  Raffaelle  would  say,  with  a  smile, 
"  Ah,  Luca,  so  do  I !  " 

"  It  is  not  the  same  thing,  my  dear,"  sighed  Luca ; 
"  I  want  her  for  my  wife." 

"  I  shall  have  no  wife ;  I  shall  marry  myself  to 
painting,"  said  Raffaelle,  with  a  little  grave  wise  face 
looking  out  from  under  the  golden  roof  of  his  fair  hair. 
For  he  was  never  tired  of  watching  his  father  painting 
the  saints  with  their  branch  of  palm  on  their  ground 
of  blue  or  of  gold,  or  Maestro  Benedetto  making  the 
dull  clay  glow  with  angels'  wings  and  prophets'  robes 
and  holy  legends  told  in  colour. 

Now,  one  day  as  Raffaelle  was  standing  and  look- 
ing thus  at  his  favourite  window  in  the  potter's  house, 
his  friend,  the  handsome,  black-browed  Luca,  who 
was  also  standing  there,  did  sigh  so  deeply  and  so 
deplorably  that  the  child  was  startled  from  his 
dreams. 

"  Good  Luca,  what  ails  you  ?  "  he  murmured,  wind- 
ing his  arms  about  the  young  man's  knees. 

"  Oh,  'Faello ! "  mourned  the  apprentice,  woefully. 
"  Here  is  such  a  chance  to  win  the  hand  of  Pacifica  if 
only  I  had  talent,  —  such  talent  as  that  Giorgio  of 
Gubbio  has !  If  the  good  Lord  had  only  gifted  me 
with  a  master's  skill,  instead  of  all  this  bodily  strength 
and  sinew,  like  a  wild  hog  of  the  woods,  which  avails 
me  nothing  here  ! " 

"  What  chance  is  it  ?  "  asked  Raffaelle,  "  and  what 
is  there  new  about  Pacifica  ?  She  told  me  nothing, 
and  I  was  with  her  an  hour." 


THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO.  21 

"  Pear  simple  one,  she  knows  nothing  of  it,"  said 
Luca,  heaving  another  tremendous  sigh  from  his 
heart's  deepest  depths.  "  You  must  know  that  a  new 
order  has  come  in  this  very  forenoon  from  the  duke ; 
he  wishes  a  dish  and  a  jar  of  the  very  finest  and  firm- 
est majolica  to  be  painted  with  the  story  of  Esther,  and 
made  ready  in  three  months  from  this  date,  to  then  go 
as  his  gifts  to  his  cousins  of  Gonzaga.  He  has  ordered 
that  no  cost  be  spared  in  the  work,  but  that  the  paint- 
ing thereof  be  of  the  best  that  can  be  produced,  and 
the  prize  he  will  give  is  fifty  scudi.  Now,  Maestro 
Benedetto,  having  known  some  time,  it  seems,  of  this 
order,  has  had  made  in  readiness  several  large  oval 
dishes  and  beautiful  big-bellied  jars :  he  gives  one  of 
each  to  each  of  his  pupils,  —  to  myself,  to  Berengario, 
to  Tito,  and  Zenone.  The  master  is  sorely  distraught 
that  his  eyesight  permits  him  not  himself  to  execute 
the  duke's  commands ;  but  it  is  no  secret  that  should 
one  of  us  be  so  fortunate  as  to  win  the  duke's  appro- 
bation, the  painter  who  does  so  shall  become  his 
partner  here  and  shall  have  the  hand  of  Pacifica. 
Some  say  that  he  has  only  put  forth  this  promise  as  a 
stimulus  to  get  the  best  work  done  of  which  his  bot- 
tega  is  capable ;  but  I  know  Maestro  Benedetto  too 
well  to  deem  him  guilty  of  any  such  evasion.  What 
he  has  said  he  will  carry  out ;  if  the  vase  and  the  dish 
win  the  duke's  praise,  they  will  also  win  Pacifica. 
Now  you  see,  'Faello  mine,  why  I  am  so  bitterly  sad 
of  heart,  for  I  am  a  good  craftsman  enough  at  the 
wheel  and  the  furnace,  and  I  like  not  ill  the  handling 


22  THE  CHILD   OF  UEBINO. 

and  the  moulding  of  the  clay,  but  at  the  painting  of 
the  clay  I  am  but  a  tyro,  and  Berengario  or  even  the 
little  Zenone  will  beat  me ;  of  that  I  am  sure." 

Raffaelle  heard  all  this  in  silence,  leaning  his  elbows 
on  his  friend's  knee,  and  his  chin  on  the  palms  of  his 
own  hands.  He  knew  that  the  other  pupils  were  bet- 
ter painters  by  far  than  his  Luca,  though  not  one  of 
them  was  such  a  good-hearted  or  noble-looking  youth, 
and  for  none  of  them  did  the  maiden  Pacifica  care. 

"  How  long  a  time  is  given  for  the  jar  and  the  dish 
to  be  ready  ? "  he  asked,  at  length. 

"  Three  months,  my  dear,"  said  Luca,  with  a  sigh 
sadder  tha.n  ever.  "  But  if  it  were  three  years,  what 
difference  would  it  make  ?  You  cannot  cudgel  the 
divine  grace  of  art  into  a  man  with  blows  as  you 
cudgel  speed  into  a  mule,  and  I  shall  be  a  dolt  at  the 
end  of  the  time,  as  I  am  now.  What  said  your  good 
father  to  me  but  yesternight  ?  —  and  he  is  good  to  me 
and  does  not  despise  me.  He  said, '  Luca,  my  son,  it 
is  of  no  more  avail  for  you  to  sigh  for  Pacifica  than 
for  the  moon.  Were  she  mine  I  would  give  her  to 
you,  for  you  have  a  heart  of  gold,  but  Signor  Bene- 
detto will  not ;  for  never,  I  fear  me,  will  you  be  able 
to  decorate  anything  more  than  an  apothecary's  mortar 
or  a  barber's  basin.  If  I  hurt  you,  take  it  not  ill ;  I 
mean  kindness,  and  were  I  a  stalwart  youth  like  you 
I  would  go  try  my  fortunes  in  the  Free  Companies  in 
France  or  Spain,  or  down  in  Rome,  for  you  are  made 
for  a  soldier.'  That  was  the  best  even  your  father 
could  say  for  me,  'Faello." 


THE  CHILD   OF   UBBINO.  23 

"  But  Pacifica,"  said  the  child,  —  "  Pacifica  would 
not  wish  you  to  join  the  Free  Companies  ?  " 

"  God  knows,"  said  Luca,  hopelessly.  "  Perhaps 
she  would  not  care." 

"  I  am  sure  she  would,"  said  Raffaelle,  "  for  she 
does  love  you,  Luca,  though  she  cannot  say  so,  being 
but  a  girl,  and  Signor  Benedetto  against  you.  But 
that  redcap  you  tamed  for  her,  how  she  loves  it,  how 
she  caresses  it,  and  half  is  for  you,  Luca,  half  for  the 
bird ! " 

Luca  kissed  him. 

But  the  tears  rolled  down  the  poor  youth's  face, 
for  he  was  much  in  earnest  and  filled  with  despair. 

"  Even  if  she  did,  if  she  do,"  he  murmured,  hope- 
lessly, "  she  never  will  let  me  know  it,  since  her  father 
forbids  a  thought  of  me ;  and  now  here  is  this  trial  of 
skill  at  the  duke's  order  come  to  make  things  worse, 
and  if  that  swaggering  Berengario  of  Fano  win  her, 
then  truly  will  I  join  the  free  lances  and  pray  heaven 
send  me  swift  shrive  and  shroud." 

Raffaelle  was  very  pensive  for  awhile ;  then  he 
raised  his  head  and  said : 

"  I  have  thought  of  something,  Luca.  But  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  will  let  me  try  it." 

"You  angel  child!  What  would  your  old  Luca 
deny  to  you  ?  But  as  for  helping  me,  my  dear,  put 
that  thought  out  of  your  little  mind  for  ever,  for  no 
one  can  help  me,  'Faello,  not  the  saints  themselves, 
since  I  was  born  a  dolt !  " 

Raffaelle  kissed  him,  and  said,  "  Now  listen ! " 


24  THE  CHILD   OF   UEBINO. 

A  few  days  later  Signer  Benedetto  informed  his 
pupils  in  ceremonious  audience  of  the  duke's  command, 
and  of  his  own  intentions ;  he  did  not  pronounce  his 
daughter's  name  to  the  youths,  but  he  spoke  in  terms 
that  were  clear  enough  to  assure  them  that  whoever 
had  the  good  fortune  and  high  merit  to  gain  the  duke's 
choice  of  his  pottery  should  have  the  honour  of  be- 
coming associate  in  his  own  famous  bottega.  Now,  it 
had  been  known  in  Urbino  ever  since  Pacifica  had 
gone  to  her  first  communion  that  whoever  pleased  her 
father  well  enough  to  become  his  partner  would  have 
also  to  please  her  as  her  husband.  Not  much  atten- 
tion was  given  to  maidens'  wishes  in  those  times,  and 
no  one  thought  the  master-potter  either  unjust  or  cruel 
in  thus  suiting  himself  before  he  suited  his  daughter. 
And  what  made  the  hearts  of  all  the  young  men  quake 
and  sink  the  lowest  was  the  fact  that  Signer  Benedetto 
offered  the  competition  not  only  to  his  own  appren- 
tices but  to  any  native  of  the  duchy  of  Urbino.  For 
who  could  tell  what  hero  might  not  step  forth  from 
obscurity  and  gain  the  great  prize  of  this  fair  hand  of 
Pacifica's  ?  And  with  her  hand  would  go  many  a 
broad  gold  ducat,  and  heritage  of  the  wide  old  gray 
stone  house,  and  many  an  old  jewel  and  old  brocade 
that  were  kept  there  in  dusky  sweet-smelling  cabinets, 
and  also  more  than  one  good  piece  of  land,  smiling 
with  corn  and  fruit-trees,  outside  the  gates  in  the  lower 
pastures  to  the  westward. 

Luca,  indeed,  never  thought  of  these  things,  but  the 
other  three  pupils  did,  and  other  youths  as  well.     Had 


THE  CHILD   OF  UBBINO,  25 

it  not  been  for  the  limitation  as  to  birth  within  the 
duchy,  many  a  gallant  young  painter  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Apennines,  many  a  lusty  vasalino  or  hocca- 
lino  from  the  workshops  of  fair  Florence  herself,  or 
from  the  Lombard  cities,  might  have  travelled  there 
in  hot  haste  as  fast  as  horses  could  carry  them,  and 
come  to  paint  the  clay  for  the  sake  of  so  precious  a 
recompense.  But  Urbino  men  they  had  to  be ;  and 
poor  Luca,  who  was  so  full  of  despair  that  he  could 
almost  have  thrown  himself  headlong  from  the  rocks, 
was  thankful  to  destiny  for  even  so  much  slender 
mercy  as  this,  —  that  the  number  of  his  rivals  was 
limited. 

"  Had  I  been  you,"  Giovanni  Sanzio  ventured  once 
to  say  respectfully  to  Signer  Benedetto,  "I  think  I 
should  have  picked  out  for  my  son-in-law  the  best 
youth  that  I  knew,  not  the  best  painter ;  for  be  it  said 
in  all  reverence,  my  friend,  the  greatest  artist  is  not 
always  the  truest  man,  and  by  the  hearthstone  humble 
virtues  have  sometimes  high  claim." 

Then  Signer  Benedetto  had  set  his  stern  face  like  a 
flint,  knowing  very  well  what  youth  Messer  Giovanni 
would  have  liked  to  name  to  him. 

"  I  have  need  of  a  good  artist  in  my  bottega  to  keep 
up  its  fame,"  he  had  said,  stiffly.  "  My  vision  is  not 
what  it  was,  and  I  should  be  loath  to  see  Urbino  ware 
fall  back,  whilst  Pesaro  and  Gubbio  and  Castel  Durante 
gain  ground  every  day.  Pacifica  must  pay  the  penalty, 
if  penalty  there  be,  for  being  the  daughter  of  a  great 
artist." 


26  THE  CHILD   OF  UBBINO, 

Mirthful,  keen-witted  Sanzio  smiled  to  himself,  and 
went  his  way  in  silence ;  for  he  who  loved  Andrea 
Mantegna  did  not  bow  down  in  homage  before  the 
old  master-potter's  estimation  of  himself,  which  was 
in  truth  somewhat  overweening  in  its  vanity. 

"  Poor  Pacifica ! "  he  thought :  "  if  only  my  'Faello 
were  but  some  decade  older ! " 

He,  who  could  not  foresee  the  future,  the  splendid, 
wondrous,  unequalled  future  that  awaited  his  young 
son,  wished  nothing  better  for  him  than  a  peaceful 
painter's  life  here  in  old  Urbino,  under  the  friendly 
shadow  of  the  Montefeltro's  palace  walls. 

Meanwhile,  where  think  you  was  Raffaelle  ?  Half 
the  day,  or  all  the  day,  and  every  day,  whenever  he 
could  ?  Where  think  you  was  he  ?  Well,  in  the  attic 
of  Luca,  before  a  bowl  and  a  dish  almost  as  big  as 
himself.  The  attic  was  a  breezy,  naked  place,  under- 
neath the  arches  supporting  the  roof  of  Maestro  Bene- 
detto's dwelling.  Each  pupil  had  one  of  these  garrets 
to  himself,  —  a  rare  boon,  for  which  Luca  came  to  be 
very  thankful,  for  without  it  he  could  not  have  shel- 
tered his  angel ;  and  the  secret  that  Raffaelle  had 
whispered  to  him  that  day  of  the  first  conference  had 
been,  "  Let  me  try  and  paint  it!  " 

For  a  long  time  Luca  had  been  afraid  to  comply, 
had  only  forborne  indeed  from  utter  laughter  at  the 
idea  from  his  love  and  reverence  for  the  little  speaker. 
Baby  Sanzio,  who  was  only  just  seven  years  old  as  the 
April  tulips  reddened  the  corn,  painting  a  majolica 
dish  and  vase  to  go  to  the  Gonzaga  of  Mantua !     The 


THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO.  27 

good  fellow  could  scarcely  restrain  his  shouts  of  mirth 
at  the  audacious  fancy;  and  nothing  had  kept  him 
grave  but  the  sight  of  that  most  serious  face  of  Raffa- 
elle,  looking  up  to  his  with  serene,  sublime  self-confi- 
dence, nay,  perhaps,  rather,  confidence  in  heaven  and 
in  heaven's  gifts. 

"  Let  me  try ! "  said  the  child  a  hundred  times. 
He  would  tell  no  one,  only  Luca  would  know ;  and 
if  he  failed  —  well,  there  would  only  be  the  spoiled 
pottery  to  pay  for,  and  had  he  not  two  whole  ducats 
that  the  duke  had  given  him  when  the  court  had 
come  to  behold  his  father's  designs  for  the  altar 
frescoes  at  San  Dominico  di  Cagli  ? 

So  utterly  in  earnest  was  he,  and  so  intense  and 
blank  was  Luca's  absolute  despair,  that  the  young 
man  had  in  turn  given  way  to  his  entreaties. 
"  Never  can  I  do  aught,"  he  thought,  bitterly, 
looking  at  his  own  clumsy  designs.  "  And  some- 
times by  the  help  of  cherubs  the  saints  work 
miracleSo" 

"  It  will  be  no  miracle,"  said  Raffaelle,  hearing  him 
murmur  this :  "  it  will  be  myself,  and  that  which  the 
dear  God  has  put  into  me." 

From  that  hour  Luca  let  him  do  what  he  would, 
and  through  all  these  lovely  early  summer  days  the 
child  came  and  shut  himself  up  in  the  garret,  and 
studied,  and  thought,  and  worked,  and  knitted  his 
pretty  fair  brows,  and  smiled  in  tranquil  satisfaction, 
according  to  the  mood  he  was  in  and  the  progress  of 
his  labours. 


28  THE  CniLD   OF  UEBINO. 

Giovanni  Sanzio  went  away  at  that  time  to  paint  an 
altar-piece  over  at  Citta  di  Castello,  and  his  little  son 
for  once  was  glad  he  was  absent.  Messer  Giovanni 
would  surely  have  remarked  the  long  and  frequent 
visits  of  Raffaelle  to  the  attic,  and  would  in  all  like- 
lihood have  obliged  him  to  pore  over  his  Latin  or  to 
take  exercise  in  the  open  fields ;  but  his  mother  said 
nothing,  content  that  he  should  be  amused  and  safe, 
and  knowing  well  that  Pacifica  loved  him  and  would 
let  him  come  to  no  harm  under  her  roof.  Pacifica 
herself  did  wonder  that  he  deserted  her  so  perpetually 
for  the  garret.  But  one  day  when  she  questioned 
him,  the  sweet-faced  rogue  clung  to  her  and  mur- 
mured, "' Oh,  Pacifica,  I  do  want  Luca  to  win  you, 
because  he  loves  you  so ;  and  I  do  love  you  both  ! " 
And  she  grew  pale,  and  answered  him,  "  Ah,  dear,  if 
he  could  !  "  and  then  said  never  a  word  more,  but 
went  to  her  distaff ;  and  Raffaelle  saw  great  tears 
fall  off  her  lashes  down  among  the  flax. 

She  thought  he  went  to  the  attic  to  watch  how 
Luca  painted,  and  loved  him  more  than  ever  for  that, 
but  knew  in  the  hopelessness  of  her  heart  —  as  Luca 
also  knew  it  in  his  —  that  the  good  and  gallant  youth 
would  never  be  able  to  create  anything  that  would  go 
as  the  duke's  gifts  to  the  Gonzaga  of  Mantua.  And 
she  did  care  for  Luca !  She  had  spoken  to  him  but 
rarely  indeed,  yet  passing  in  and  out  of  the  same 
doors,  and  going  to  the  same  church  offices,  and 
dwelling  always  beneath  the  same  roof,  he  had  found 
means  of  late  for  a  word,  a  flower,  a  serenade.     And 


RAFFAELLE    AND    PACIFICA    IK    THE    GARDEN. 


THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO.  31 

he  was  so  handsome  and  so  brave,  and  so  gentle,  too, 
and  so  full  of  deference.  Poor  Pacifica  cared  not  in 
the  least  whether  he  could  paint  or  not.  He  could 
have  made  her  happy. 

In  the  attic  Raffaelle  passed  the  most  anxious  hours 
of  all  his  sunny  little  life.  He  would  not  allow  Luca 
even  to  look  at  what  he  did.  He  barred  the  door  and 
worked ;  when  he  went  away  he  locked  his  work  up 
in  a  wardrobe.  The  swallows  came  in  and  out  of  the 
unglazed  window,  and  fluttered  all  around  him  ;  the 
morning  sunbeams  came  in,  too,  and  made  a  nimbus 
around  his  golden  head,  like  that  which  his  father 
gilded  above  the  heads  of  saints.  Raffaelle  worked 
on,  not  looking  off,  though  clang  of  trumpet,  or 
fanfare  of  cymbal,  often  told  him  there  was  much 
going  on  worth  looking  at  down  below.  He  was 
only  seven  years  old,  but  he  laboured  as  earnestly  as 
if  he  were  a  man  grown,  his  little  rosy  fingers  gripping 
that  pencil  which  was  to  make  him  in  life  and  death 
famous  as  kings  are  not  famous,  and  let  his  tender 
body  lie  in  its  last  sleep  in  the  Pantheon  of  Rome. 

He  had  covered  hundreds  of  sheets  with  designs  be- 
fore he  had  succeeded  in  getting  embodied  the  ideas 
that  haunted  him.  When  he  had  pleased  himself  at 
last,  he  set  to  work  to  transfer  his  imaginations  to  the 
clay  in  colour,  in  the  subtile  luminous  metallic  enamel 
that  characterises  Urbino  majolica. 

Ah,  how  glad  he  was  now  that  his  father  had  let 
him  draw  from  the  time  he  was  two  years  old,  and 
that  of  late  Messer  Benedetto  had  shown  him  some- 


32  THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO, 

thing  of  the  mysteries  of  painting  on  biscuit  and  pro- 
ducing the  metallic  lustre  which  was  the  especial 
glory  of  the  pottery  of  the  duchy ! 

How  glad  he  was,  and  how  his  little  heart  bounded 
and  seemed  to  sing  in  this  his  first  enjoyment  of  the 
joyous  liberties  and  powers  of  creative  work  ! 

A  well-known  writer  has  said  that  genius  is  the 
power  of  taking  pains;  he  should  have  said  rather 
that  genius  has  this  power  also,  but  that  first  and  fore- 
most it  possesses  the  power  of  spontaneous  and  exqui- 
site production  without  effort  and  with  delight. 

Luca  looked  at  him  (not  at  his  work,  for  the  child 
had  made  him  promise  not  to  do  so)  and  began  to 
marvel  at  his  absorption,  his  intentness,  the  evident 
facility  with  whiiih  he  worked  ;  the  little  figure,  lean- 
ing over  the  great  dish  on  the  bare  board  of  the  table, 
with  the  oval  opening  of  the  window  and  the  blue  sky 
beyond  it,  began  to  grow  sacred  to  him  with  more  than 
the  sanctity  of  childhood.  Raffaelle's  face  grew  very 
serious,  too,  and  lost  its  colour,  and  his  large  hazel  eyes 
looked  very  big  and  grave  and  dark. 

"  Perhaps  Signor  Giovanni  will  be  angry  with  me  if 
ever  he  know,"  thought  poor  Luca ;  but  it  was  too  late 
to  alter  anything  now.  The  child  Sanzio  had  become 
his  master. 

So  Raffaelle,  unknown  to  any  one  else,  worked  on 
and  on  there  in  the  attic  while  the  tulips  bloomed  and 
withered,  and  the  honeysuckle  was  in  flower  in  the 
hedges,  and  the  wheat  and  barley  were  being  cut  in 
the  quiet  fields  lying  far  down  below  in  the  sunshine. 


THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO.  33 

For  midsummer  was  come ;  the  three  months,  all  but 
a  week,  had  passed  by.  It  was  known  that  every  one 
was  ready  to  compete  for  the  duke's  choice. 

One  afternoon  Raffaelle  took  Luca  by  the  hand  and 
said  to  him,  "  Come." 

He  led  the  young  man  up  to  the  table,  beneath  the 
unglazed  window,  where  he  had  passed  so  many  of 
these  ninety  days  of  the  spring  and  summer. 

Luca  gave  a  great  cry,  and  stood  gazing,  gazing, 
gazing.  Then  he  fell  on  his  knees  and  embraced  the 
little  feet  of  the  child :  it  was  the  first  homage  that 
he,  whose  life  became  one  beautiful  song  of  praise, 
received  from  man. 

"  Dear  Luca,"  he  said,  softly,  "  do  not  do  that.  If 
it  be  indeed  good,  let  us  thank  God." 

What  his  friend  saw  were  the  great  oval  dish  and 
the  great  jar  or  vase  standing  with  the  sunbeams  full 
upon  them,  and  the  brushes  and  the  tools  and  the 
colours  all  strewn  around.  And  they  shone  with  lus- 
trous opaline  hues  and  wondrous  flame-like  glories 
and  gleaming  iridescence,  like  melted  jewels,  and 
there  were  all  manner  of  graceful  symbols  and  classic 
designs  wrought  upon  them ;  and  their  borders  were 
garlanded  with  cherubs  and  flowers,  bearing  the  arms 
of  Montefeltro ;  and  the  landscapes  were  the  tender, 
homely  landscapes  round  about  Urbino ;  and  the 
mountains  had  the  solemn  radiance  that  the  Apen- 
nines wore  at  evening  time ;  and  amidst  the  figures 
there  was  one  supreme,  white-robed,  golden-crowned 
Esther,  to  whom  the  child  painter  had  given  the  face 


34  THE  CHILD   OF  UEBINO. 

of  Pacifica.  And  this  wondrous  creation,  wrought 
by  a  baby's  hand,  had  safely  and  secretly  passed  the 
ordeal  of  the  furnace,  and  had  come  forth  without 
spot  or  flaw. 

Luca  ceased  not  from  kneeling  at  the  feet  of 
Raffaelle,  as  ever  since  has  kneeled  the  world. 

"  0  wondrous  boy !  0  angel  sent  unto  men ! " 
sighed  the  poor  'prentice,  as  he  gazed ;  and  his  heart 
was  so  full  that  he  burst  into  tears. 

"  Let  us  thank  God,"  said  little  Raffaelle,  again ; 
and  he  joined  his  small  hands  that  had  wrought  this 
miracle,  and  said  his  Laus  Domini. 

When  the  precious  jar  and  the  great  platter  were 
removed  to  the  wardrobe  and  shut  up  in  safety  behind 
the  steel  wards  of  the  locker,  Luca  said,  timidly,  feel- 
ing twenty  years  in  age  behind  the  wisdom  of  this 
divine  child,  "  But,  dearest  boy,  I  do  not  see  how  your 
marvellous  and  most  exquisite  accomplishment  can 
advantage  me.  Even  if  you  would  allow  it  to  pass  as 
mine,  I  could  not  accept  such  a  thing :  it  would  be  a 
fraud,  a  shame:  not  even  to  win  Pacifica  could  I 
consent." 

"Be  not  so  hasty,  good  friend,"  said  Raffaelle. 
"Wait  just  a  little  longer  yet  and  see.  I  have  my 
own  idea.     Do  trust  in  me." 

"  Heaven  speaks  in  you,  that  I  believe,"  said  Luca, 
humbly. 

Raffaelle  answered  not,  but  ran  down-stairs,  and 
passing  Pacifica,  threw  his  arms  about  her  in  more 
than  his  usual  affectionate  caresses. 


THE  CHILD   OF  UBIUNO.  35 

"  Pacifica,  be  of  good  heart,"  he  murmured,  and 
would  not  be  questioned,  but  ran  homeward  to  his 
mother. 

"  Can  it  be  that  Luca  has  done  well  ? "  thought 
Pacifica;  but  she  feared  the  child's  wishes  had  out- 
run his  wisdom.  He  could  not  be  any  judge,  a  child 
of  seven  years,  even  though  he  were  the  son  of  that 
good  and  honest  painter  and  poet,  Giovanni  Sanzio. 

The  next  morning  was  midsummer  day.  Now,  the 
pottery  was  all  to  be  placed  on  this  forenoon  in  the 
bottega  of  Signor  Benedetto ;  and  the  Duke  Guido- 
baldo  was  then  to  come  and  make  his  choice  from 
amidst  them ;  and  the  master-potter,  a  little  because 
he  was  a  cpurtier,  and  more  because  he  liked  to  affect 
a  mighty  indifference  and  to  show  he  had  no  favour- 
itism, had  declared  that  he  would  not  himself  see  the 
competing  works  of  art  until  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  of 
Montefeltro  also  fell  upon  them. 

As  for  Pacifica,  she  had  locked  herself  in  her 
chamber,  alone  with  her  intense  agitation.  The 
young  men  were  swaggering  about,  and  taunting 
each  other,  and  boasting.  Luca  alone  sat  apart, 
thrumming  an  old  lute.  Giovanni  Sanzio,  who 
had  ridden  home  at  evening  from  Citta  di  Castello, 
came  in  from  his  own  house  and  put  his  hand  on  the 
youth's  shoulder. 

"  I  hear  the  Pesaro  men  have  brought  fine  things. 
Take  courage,  my  lad.  Maybe  we  can  entreat  the 
duke  to  dissuade  Pacifica's  father  from  this  tyrannous 
disposal  of  her  hand." 


36  THE  CHILD   OF  UBBINO, 

Luca  shook  his  head  wearily. 

There  would  be  one  beautiful  thing  there,  indeed, 
he  knew ;  but  what  use  would  that  be  to  him  ? 

"The  child  —  the  child  — "  he  stammered,  and 
then  remembered  that  he  must  not  disclose  Raffaelle's 
secret. 

"  My  child  ?  "  said  Signor  Giovanni.  "  Oh,  he  will 
be  here ;  he  will  be  sure  to  be  here :  wherever  there 
is  a  painted  thing  to  be  seen,  there  always,  be  sure,  is 
Raffaelle." 

Then  the  good  man  sauntered  within  from  the 
loggia,  to  exchange  salutations  with  Ser  Benedetto, 
who,  in  a  suit  of  fine  crimson  with  doublet  of  sad- 
coloured  velvet,  was  standing  ready  to  advance  bare- 
headed into  the  street  as  soon  as  the  hoofs  of  the 
duke's  charger  should  strike  on  the  stones. 

"  You  must  be  anxious  in  your  thoughts,"  said 
Signor  Giovanni  to  him.  "They  say  a  youth  from 
Pesaro  brings  something  fine :  if  you  should  find 
yourself  bound  to  take  a  stranger  into  your  work- 
room and  your  home  —  " 

"If  he  be  a  man  of  genius  he  will  be  welcome," 
answered  Messer  Ronconi,  pompously.  "  Be  he  of 
Pesaro,  or  of  Fano,  or  of  Castel  Durante,  I  go  not 
back  from  my  word :  I  keep  my  word,  to  my  own 
hindrance  even,  ever." 

"  Let  us  hope  it  will  bring  you  only  joy  and  triumph 
here,"  said  his  neighbour,  who  knew  him  to  be  an 
honest  man  and  a  true,  if  overobstinate  and  too  vain 
of  his  own  place  in  Urbino. 


THE  CHILD   OF   URBINO.  37 

"  Our  lord  the  duke  !  "  shouted  the  people  standing 
in  the  street;  and  Ser  Benedetto  walked  out  with 
stately  tread  to  receive  the  honour  of  his  master's  visit 
to  his  bottega. 

Raffaelle  slipped  noiselessly  up  to  his  father's  side, 
and  slid  his  little  hand  into  Sanzio's. 

"  You  are  not  surely  afraid  of  our  good  Guido- 
baldo  !  "  said  his  father,  with  a  laugh  and  some  little 
surprise,  for  Raffaelle  was  very  pale,  and  his  lower  lip 
trembled  a  little. 

"  No,"  said  the  child,  simply. 

The  young  duke  and  his  court  came  riding  down 
the  street,  and  paused  before  the  old  stone  house  of 
the  master-potter,  —  splendid  gentlemen,  though  only 
in  their  morning  apparel,  with  noble  Barbary  steeds 
fretting  under  them,  and  little  pages  and  liveried 
varlets  about  their  steps.  Usually,  unless  he  went 
hunting  or  on  a  visit  to  some  noble,  Guidobaldo,  like 
his  father,  walked  about  Urbino  like  any  one  of  his 
citizens ;  but  he  knew  the  pompous  and  somewhat 
vainglorious  temper  of  Messer  Benedetto,  and  good- 
naturedly  was  willing  to  humour  its  harmless  vanities. 
Bowing  to  the  ground,  the  master-potter  led  the  way, 
walking  backward  into  his  bottega;  the  courtiers 
followed  their  prince ;  Giovanni  Sanzio  with  his  little 
son  and  a  few  other  privileged  persons  went  in  also  at 
due  distance.  At  the  farther  end  of  the  workshop 
stood  the  pupils  and  the  artists  from  Pesaro  and  other 
places  in  the  duchy  whose  works  were  there  in  com- 
petition.    In  all  there  were  some  ten   competitors: 


38  THE  CHILD   OF   UBBINO. 

poor  Luca,  who  had  set  his  own  work  on  the  table 
with  the  rest  as  he  was  obliged  to  do,  stood  hindmost 
of  all,  shrinking  back,  to  hide  his  misery,  into  the 
deepest  shadow  of  the  deep-bayed  latticed  window. 

On  the  narrow  deal  benches  that  served  as  tables 
on  working-days  to  the  pottery -painters  were  ranged 
the  dishes  and  the  jars,  with  a  number  attached  to 
each,  —  no  name  to  any,  because  Signor  Benedetto 
was  resolute  to  prove  his  own  absolute  disinterested- 
ness in  the  matter  of  choice :  he  wished  for  the  best 
artist.  Prince  Guidobaldo,  doffing  his  plumed  cap 
courteously,  walked  down  the  long  room  and  examined 
each  production  in  its  turn.  On  the  whole,  the  col- 
lection made  a  brave  display  of  majolica,  though  he 
was  perhaps  a  little  disappointed  at  the  result  in  each 
individual  case,  for  he  had  wanted  something  out  of 
the  conimon  run  and  absolutely  perfect.  Still,  with 
fair  words  he  complimented  Signor  Benedetto  on  the 
brave  show,  and  only  before  the  work  of  poor  Luca 
was  he  entirely  silent,  since  indeed  silence  was  the 
greatest  kindness  he  could  show  to  it :  the  drawing 
was  bold  and  regular,  but  the  colouring  was  hopelessly 
crude,  glaring,  and  ill-disposed. 

At  last,  before  a  vase  and  a  dish  that  stood  modestly 
at  the  very  farthest  end  of  the  deal  bench,  the  duke 
gave  a  sudden  exclamation  of  delight,  and  Signor 
Benedetto  grew  crimson  with  pleasure  and  surprise, 
and  Giovanni  Sanzio  pressed  a  little  nearer  and  tried 
to  see  over  the  ,  shoulders  of  the  gentlemen  of  the 
court,  feeling  sure  that  something  rare  and  beautiful 


THE  CHILD   OF  UBBINO.  39 

must  have  called  forth  that  cry  of  wonder  from  the 
Lord  of  Montefeltro,  and  having  seen  at  a  glance 
that  for  his  poor  friend  Luca  there  was  no  sort  of 
hope. 

"This  is  beyond  all  comparison,"  said  Guidobaldo, 
taking  the  great  oval  dish  up  reverently  in  his  hands. 
"  Maestro  Benedetto,  I  do  felicitate  you  indeed  that 
you  should  possess  such  a  pupil.  He  will  be  a  glory 
to  our  beloved  Urbino." 

"  It  is  indeed  most  excellent  worlc,  my  lord  duke," 
said  the  master-potter,  who  was  trembling  with  sur- 
prise and  dared  not  show  all  the  astonishment  and 
emotion  that  he  felt  at  the  discovery  of  so  exquisite  a 
creation  in  his  bottega.  "  It  must  be,"  he  added,  for 
he  was  a  very  honest  man,  "  the  work  of  one  of  the 
lads  of  Pesaro  or  Castel  Durante.  I  have  no  such 
craftsman  in  my  workshop.  It  is  beautiful  exceed- 
ingly ! " 

"  It  is  worth  its  weight  in  gold ! "  said  the  prince, 
sharing  his  emotion.  "  Look,  gentlemen  —  look  !  Will 
not  the  fame  of  Urbino  be  borne  beyond  the  Apennines 
and  Alps?" 

Thus  summoned,  the  court  and  the  citizens  came  to 
look,  and  averred  that  truly  never  in  Urbino  had  they 
seen  such  painting  on  majolica. 

"  But  whose  is  it  ? "  said  Guidobaldo,  impatiently, 
casting  his  eyes  over  the  gathered  group  in  the  back- 
ground of  apprentices  and  artists.  "  Maestro  Bene- 
detto, I  pray  you,  the  name  of  the  artist ;  I  pray  you, 
quick  1 " 


40  THE  CHILD   OF   UEBINO, 

"  It  is  marked  number  eleven,  my  lord,"  answered 
the  master-potter.  "  Ho,  you  who  reply  to  that  num- 
ber, stand  out  and  give  your  name.  My  lord  duke 
has  chosen  your  work.    Ho,  there !  do  you  hear  me  ?  " 

But  not  one  of  the  group  moved.  The  young  men 
looked  from  one  to  another.  Who  was  this  nameless 
rival  ?     There  were  but  ten  of  themselves. 

"Ho,  there!"  repeated  Signor  Benedetto,  getting 
angry.  "  Cannot  you  find  a  tongue,  I  say  ?  Who  has 
wrought  this  work  ?  Silence  is  but  insolence  to  his 
Highness  and  to  me  ! " 

Then  the  child  Sanzio  loosened  his  little  hand  from 
his  father's  hold,  and  went  forward,  and  stood  before 
the  master-potter. 

"  I  painted  it,"  he  said,  with  a  pleased  smile  :  "  I, 
Raffaelle." 

Can  you  not  fancy,  without  telling,  the  confusion, 
the  wonder,  the  rapture,  the  incredulity,  the  questions, 
the  wild  ecstasy  of  praise,  that  followed  on  the  dis- 
covery of  the  child  artist  ?  Only  the  presence  of 
Guidobaldo  kept  it  in  anything  like  decent  quietude, 
and  even  he,  all  duke  though  he  was,  felt  his  eyes  wet 
and  felt  his  heart  swell ;  for  he  himself  was  child- 
less, and  for  the  joy  that  Giovanni  Sanzio  felt  that 
day  he  would  have  given  his  patrimony  and  duchy. 

He  took  a  jewel  hung  on  a  gold  chain  from  his  own 
breast  and  threw  it  over  Raffaelle's  shoulders. 

"  There  is  your  first  guerdon,"  he  said  ;  "  you  will 
have  many,  0  wondrous  child,  who  shall  live  when  we 
are  dust ! " 


THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO.  43 

Raffaelle,  who  himself  was  all  the  while  quite  tran- 
quil and  unmoved,  kissed  the  duke's  hand  with  sweetest 
grace,  then  turned  to  his  own  father. 

"  It  is  true  I  have  won  my  lord  duke's  prize  ?  " 

"  Quite  true,  my  angel !  "  said  Giovanni  Sanzio,  with 
tremulous  voice. 

Raffaelle  looked  up  at  Maestro  Benedetto. 

"  Then  I  claim  the  hand  of  Pacifica !  " 

There  was  a  smile  on  all  the  faces  round,  even  on 
the  darker  countenances  of  the  vanquished  painters. 

"  Oh,  would  indeed  you  were  of  age  to  be  my  son 
by  marriage,  as  you  are  the  son  of  my  heart ! "  mur- 
mured Signor  Benedetto.  "  Dear  and  marvellous 
child,  you  are  but  jesting,  I  know.  Tell  me  what  it 
is  indeed  that  you « would  have.  I  could  deny  you 
nothing ;  and  truly  it  is  you  who  are  my  master." 

"  I  am  your  pupil,"  said  Raffaelle,  with  that  pretty 
serious  smile  of  his,  his  little  fingers  playing  with  the 
ducal  jewel.  "  I  could  never  have  painted  that  majol- 
ica yonder  had  you  not  taught  me  the  secrets  and 
management  of  your  colours.  Now,  dear  maestro  mine, 
and  you,  0  my  lord  duke,  do  hear  me  !  I  by  the  terms 
of  the  contest  have  won  the  hand  of  Pacifica  and  the 
right  of  association  with  Messer  Ronconi.  I  take 
these  rights  and  I  give  them  over  to  my  dear  friend 
Luca  of  Fano,  because  he  is  the  honestest  man  in  all 
the  world,  and  does  honour  Signor  Benedetto  and  love 
Pacifica  as  no  other  can  do  so  well,  and  Pacifica -loves 
him ;  and  my  lord  duke  will  say  that  thus  all  will  be 
well." 


44  THE  CHILD   OF  URBINO. 

So  with  the  grave,  innocent  audacity  of  a  child  he 
spoke,  —  this  seven-year-old  painter  who  was  greater 
than  any  there. 

Signor  Benedetto  stood  mute,  sombre,  agitated. 
Luca  had  sprung  forward  and  dropped  on  one  knee : 
he  was  as  pale  as  ashes.  Raffaelle  looked  at  him 
with  a  smile. 

"My  lord  duke,"  he  said,  with  his  little  gentle 
smile,  "  you  have  chosen  my  work  ;  defend  me  in  my 
rights." 

"Listen  to  the  voice  of  an  angel,  my  good  Ben- 
edetto ;  heaven  speaks  by  him,"  said  Guidobaldo, 
gravely,  laying  his  hand  on  the  arm  of  his  master- 
potter. 

Harsh  Signor  Benedetto  burst  into  tears. 

"  I  can  refuse  him  nothing,"  he  said,  with  a  sob. 
"  He  will  give  such  glory  unto  Urbino  as  never  the 
world  hath  seen  !  " 

"  And  call  down  this  fair  Pacifica  whom  Raffaelle 
has  won,"  said  the  sovereign  of  the  duchy,  "  and  1 
will  give  her  myself  as  her  dower  as  many  gold  pieces 
as  we  can  cram  into  this  famous  vase.  An  honest 
youth  who  loves  her  and  whom  she  loves,  —  what 
better  can  you  do,  Benedetto  ?  Young  man,  rise  up 
and  be  happy.  An  angel  has  descended  on  earth  this 
day  for  you." 

But  Luca  heard  not :  he  was  still  kneeling  at  the 
feet  of  Raffaelle,  where  the  world  has  knelt  ever 
since. 


MOUFFLOU 


MOUFFLOU. 


MOUFFLOU'S  masters  were  some  boys  and  girls. 
They  were  very  poor,  but  they  were  very  merry. 
They  lived  in  an  old,  dark,  tumble-down  place,  and 
their  father  had  been  dead  five  years ;  their  mother's 
care  was  all  they  knew ;  and  Tasso  was  the  eldest  of 
them  all,  a  lad  of  nearly  twenty,  and  he  was  so  kind, 
so  good,  so  laborious,  so  cheerful,  and  so  gentle,  that 
the  children  all  younger  than  he  adored  him.  Tasso 
was  a  gardener.  Tasso,  however,  though  the  eldest 
and  mainly  the  breadwinner,  was  not  so  much  Mouf- 
flon's master  as  was  little  Romolo,  who  was  only  ten, 
and  a  cripple.  Romolo,  called  generally  Lolo,  had 
taught  Mouflfiou  all  he  knew ;  and  that  all  was  a  very 
great  deal,  for  nothing  cleverer  than  was  Moufflon 
had  ever  walked  upon  four  legs. 

Why  Moufflon  ? 

Well,  when  the  poodle  had  been  given  to  them  by 
a  soldier  who  was  going  back  to  his  home  in  Pied- 
mont, he  had  been  a  white  woolly  creature  of  a  year 
old,  and  the  children's  mother,  who  was  a  Corsican 
by  birth,  had  said  that  he  was  just  like  a  moufflon^  as 
they  call  sheep  in  Corsica.     White  and  woolly  this 

47 


48  MOUFFLOU. 

dog  remained,  and  he  became  the  handsomest  and 
biggest  poodle  in  all  the  city,  and  the  corruption  of 
Moufflon  from  Moufflon  remained  the  name  by  which 
he  was  known ;  it  was  silly,  perhaps,  but  it  suited 
him  and  the  children,  and  Moufflon  he  was. 

They  lived  in  an  old  quarter  of  Florence,  in  that 
picturesque  zigzag  which  goes  round  the  grand  church 
of  Or  San  Michele,  and  which  is  almost  more  Vene- 
tian than  Tuscan  in  its  mingling  of  colour,  charm, 
stateliness,  popular  confusion,  and  architectural  maj- 
esty. The  tall  old  houses  are  weather-beaten  into 
the  most  delicious  hues ;  the  pavement  is  enchant- 
ingly  encumbered  with  peddlers  and  stalls  and  all 
kinds  of  trades  going  on  in  the  open  air,  in  that 
bright,  merry,  beautiful  Italian  custom  which,  alas, 
alas !  is  being  driven  away  by  new-fangled  laws 
which  deem  it  better  for  the  people  to  be  stuffed  up 
in  close,  stewing  rooms  without  air,  and  would  fain 
do  away  with  all  the  good-tempered  politics  and  the 
sensible  philosophies  and  the  wholesome  chatter 
which  the  open-street  trades  and  street  gossipry  en- 
courage, for  it  is  good  for  the  populace  to  sfogare,  and 
in  no  other  way  can  it  do  so  one-half  so  innocently. 
Drive  it  back  into  musty  shops,  and  it  is  driven  at 
once  to  mutter  sedition.  .  .  .  But  you  want  to  hear 
about  Moufflon. 

Well,  Moufflon  lived  here  in  that  high  house  with 
the  sign  of  the  lamb  in  wrought  iron,  which  shows  it 
was  once  a  warehouse  of  the  old  guild  of  the  Arte 
della  Lana.      They  are  all  old  houses  here,  drawn 


MOUFFLOU.  49 

round  about  that  grand  church  which  I  called  once, 
and  will  call  again,  like  a  mighty  casket  of  oxidised 
silver.  A  mighty  casket  indeed,  holding  the  Holy 
Spirit  within  it ;  and  with  the  vermilion  and  the  blue 
and  the  orange  glowing  in  its  niches  and  its  lunettes 
like  enamels,  and  its  statues  of  the  apostles  strong 
and  noble,  like  the  times  in  which  they  were  created, 
—  St.  Peter  with  his  keys,  and  St.  Mark  with  his  open 
book,  and  St.  George  leaning  on  his  sword,  and  others 
also,  solemn  and  austere  as  they,  austere  though 
benign,  for  do  they  not  guard  the  White  Tabernacle 
of  Orcagna  within  ? 

The  church  stands  firm  as  a  rock,  square  as  a  for- 
tress of  stone,  and  the  winds  and  the  waters  of  the 
skies  may  beat  about  it  as  they  will,  they  have  no 
power  to  disturb  its  sublime  repose.  Sometimes  I 
think  of  all  the  noble  things  in  all  our  Italy  Or  San 
Michele  is  the  noblest,  standing  there  in  its  stern 
magnificence,  amidst  people's  hurrying  feet  and  noisy 
laughter,  a  memory  of  God. 

The  little  masters  of  Moufflon  lived  right  in  its 
shadow,  where  the  bridge  of  stone  spans  the  space 
between  the  houses  and  the  church  high  in  mid-air : 
and  little  Lolo  loved  the  church  with  a  great  love. 
He  loved  it  in  the  morning  time,  when  the  sunbeams 
turned  it  into  dusky  gold  and  jasper ;  he  loved  it  in 
the  evening  time,  when  the  lights  of  its  altars  glim- 
mered in  the  dark,  and  the  scent  of  its  incense  came 
out  into  the  street;  he  loved  it  in  the  great  feasts, 
when  the  huge  clusters  of  lilies  were  borne  inside  it ; 


50  MOUFFLOU. 

he  loved  it  in  the  solemn  nights  of  winter ;  the  flick- 
ering gleam  of  the  dull  lamps  shone  on  the  robes  of 
an  apostle,  or  the  sculpture  of  a  shield,  or  the  glow  of 
a  casement-moulding  in  majolica.  He  loved  it  always, 
and-,  without  knowing  why,  he  called  it  la  mia  chiesa. 

Lolo,  being  lame  and  of  delicate  health,  was  not 
enabled  to  go  to  school  or  to  work,  though  he  wove 
the  straw  covering  of  wine-flasks  and  plaited  the  cane 
matting  with  busy  fingers.  But  for  the  most  part  he 
did  as  he  liked,  and  spent  most  of  his  time  sitting  on 
the  parapet  of  Or  San  Michele,  watching  the  venders 
of  earthenware  at  their  trucks,  or  trotting  with  his 
crutch  (and  he  could  trot  a  good  many  miles  when  he 
chose)  out  with  Moufflon  down  a  bit  of  the  Stocking- 
makers'  Street,  along  under  the  arcades  of  the  Uffizi, 
and  so  over  the  Jewellers'  Bridge,  and  out  by  byways 
that  he  knew  into  the  fields  on  the  hillside  upon  the 
other  bank  of  Arno.  Moufflou  and  he  would  spend 
half  the  day  —  all  the  day  —  out  there  in  daffodil- 
time  ;  and  Lolo  would  come  home  with  great  bundles 
and  sheaves  of  golden  flowers,  and  he  and  Moufflou 
were  happy. 

His  mother  never  liked  to  say  a  harsh  word  to 
Lolo,  for  he  was  lame  through  her  fault :  she  had  let 
him  fall  in  his  babyhood,  and  the  mischief  had  been 
done  to  his  hip  never  again  to  be  undone.  So  she 
never  raised  her  voice  to  him,  though  she  did  often  to 
the  others,  —  to  curly-pated  Cecco,  and  pretty  black- 
eyed  Dina,  and  saucy  Bice,  and  sturdy  Beppo,  and 
even  to  the  good,  manly,  hard-working  Tasso.     Tasso 


MOUFFLOU.  51 

was  the  mainstay  of  the  whole,  though  he  was  but  a 
gardener's  lad,  working  in  the  green  Cascine  at  small 
wages.  But  all  he  earned  he  brought  home  to  his 
mother ;  and  he  alone  kept  in  order  the  lazy,  high- 
tempered  Sandro,  and  he  alone  kept  in  check  Bice's 
love  of  finery,  and  he  alone  could  with  shrewdness 
and  care  make  both  ends  meet  and  put  minestra 
always  in  the  pot  and  bread  always  in  the  cupboard. 

When  his  mother  thought,  as  she  thought  indeed 
almost  ceaselessly,  that  with  a  few  months  he  would  be 
of  the  age  to  draw  his  number,  and  might  draw  a  high 
one  and  be  taken  from  her  for  three  years,  the  poor 
soul  believed  her  very  heart  would  burst  and  break  ; 
and  many  a  day  at  twilight  she  would  start  out  unper- 
ceived  and  creep  into  the  great  church  and  pour  her 
soul  forth  in  supplication  before  the  White  Tabernacle. 

Yet,  pray  as  she  would,  no  miracle  could  happen  to 
make  Tasso  free  of  military  service :  if  he  drew  a  fatal 
number,  go  he  must,  even  though  he  take  all  the  lives 
of  them  to  their  ruin  with  him. 

One  morning  Lolo  sat  as  usual  on  the  parapet  of  the 
church.  Moufflon  beside  him.  It  was  a  brilliant  morn- 
ing in  September.  The  men  at  the  hand-barrows  and 
at  the  stalls  were  selling  the  crockery,  the  silk  hand- 
kerchiefs, and  the  straw  hats  which  form  the  staple 
of  the  commerce  that  goes  on  around  about  Or  San 
Michele,  —  very  blithe,  good-natured,  gay  commerce^ 
for  the  most  part,  not  got  through,  however,  of  course, 
without  bawling  and  screaming,  and  shouting  and 
gesticulating,  as  if  the  sale  of  a  penny  pipkin  or  a 


52  MOUFFLOU. 

twopenny  pie-pan  were  the  occasion  for  the  exchange 
of  many  thousands  of  pounds  sterling  and  cause  for 
the  whole  world's  commotion.  It  was  about  eleven 
o'clock ;  the  poor  petitioners  were  going  in  for  alms 
to  the  house  of  the  fraternity  of  San  Giovanni  Bat- 
tista ;  the  barber  at  the  corner  was  shaving  a  big  man 
with  a  cloth  tucked  about  his  chin,  and  his  chair  set 
well  out  on  the  pavement ;  the  sellers  of  the  pipkins 
and  pie-pans  were  screaming  till  they  were  hoarse, 
"£/>i  soldo  Vuno,  due  soldi  tre!^^  big  bronze  bells  were 
booming  till  they  seemed  to  clang  right  up  to  the 
deep-blue  sky ;  some  brethren  of  the  Misericordia  went 
by  bearing  a  black  bier;  a  large  sheaf  of  glowing 
flowers  —  dahlias,  zinnias,  asters,  and  daturas  —  was 
borne  through  the  huge  arched  door  of  the  church 
near  St.  Mark  and  his  open  book.  Lolo  looked  on  at 
it  all,  and  so  did  Moufflou,  and  a  stranger  looked 
at  them  as  he  left  the  church. 

"You  have  a  handsome  poodle  there,  my  little 
man,"  he  said  to  Lolo,  in  a  foreigner's  too  distinct  and 
careful  Italian. 

"Moufflon  is  beautiful,"  said  Lolo,  with  pride. 
"  You  should  see  him  when  he  is  just  washed ;  but 
we  can  only  wash  him  on  Sundays,  because  then  Tasso 
is  at  home." 

"  How  old  is  your  dog  ?  " 

"  Three  years  old." 

"  Does  he  do  any  tricks  ?  " 

"  Does  he ! "  said  Lolo,  with  a  very  derisive  laugh  ; 
"  why.  Moufflon  can  do  anything !     He  can  walk  on 


IN    FRONT    OF    THE    CHURCH. 


MOUFFLOU.  55 

two  legs  ever  so  long ;  make  ready,  present,  and  fire ; 
die  ;  waltz  ;  beg,  of  course ;  shut  a  door ;  make  a  wheel- 
barrow of  himself;  there  is  nothing  he  will  not  do. 
Would  you  like  to  see  him  do  something  ?  " 

"  Very  much,"  said  the  foreigner. 

To  Moufflon  and  to  Lolo  the  street  was  the  same 
thing  as  home ;  this  cheery  inazzetta  by  the  church, 
so  utterly  empty  sometimes,  and  sometimes  so  noisy 
and  crowded,  was  but  the  wider  threshold  of  their 
home  to  both  the  poodle  and  the  child. 

So  there,  under  the  lofty  and  stately  walls  of  the 
old  church,  Lolo  put  Moufflou  through  his  exercises. 
They  were  second  nature  to  Moufflou,  as  to  most 
poodles.  He  had  inherited  his  address  at  them  from 
clever  parents,  and,  as  he  had  never  been  frightened 
or  coerced,  all  his  lessons  and  acquirements  were  but 
play  to  him.  He  acquitted  himself  admirably,  and 
the  crockery-venders  came  and  looked  on,  and  a  sac- 
ristan came  out  of  the  church  and  smiled,  and  the 
barber  left  his  customer's  chin  all  in  a  lather  while  he 
laughed,  for  the  good  folk  of  the  quarter  were  all 
proud  of  Moufflou  and  never  tired  of  him,  and  the 
pleasant,  easy-going,  good-humoured  disposition  of 
the  Tuscan  populace  is  so  far  removed  from  the  stupid 
buckram  and  whalebone  in  which  the  new-fangled 
democracy  wants  to  imprison  it. 

The  stranger  also  was  much  diverted  by  Moufflon's 
talents,  and  said,  half  aloud,  "  How  this  clever  dog 
would  amuse  poor  Victor!  Would  you  bring  your 
poodle  to  please  a  sick  child  I  have  at  home  ? "  he 


56  MOUFFLOU. 

said,  quite  aloud,  to  Lolo,  who  smiled  and  answered 
that  he  would.     Where  was  the  sick  child  ? 

"  At  the  Gran  Bretagna  ;  not  far  off,"  said  the  gen- 
tleman. "  Come  this  afternoon,  and  ask  for  me  by 
this  name.'' 

He  dropped  his  card  and  a  couple  of  francs  into 
Lolo's  hand,  and  went  his  way.  Lolo,  with  Moufllou 
scampering  after  him,  dashed  into  his  own  house,  and 
stumped  up  the  stairs,  his  crutch  making  a  terrible 
noise  on  the  stone. 

"  Mother,  mother !  see  what  I  have  got  because 
Moufilou  did  his  tricks,"  he  shouted.  "  And  now  you 
can  buy  those  shoes  you  want  so  much,  and  the  coffee 
that  you  miss  so  of  a  morning,  and  the  new  linen  for 
Tasso,  and  the  shirts  for  Sandro." 

For  to  the  mind  of  Lolo  two  francs  was  as  two 
millions,  —  source  unfathomable  of  riches  inexhaust- 
ible ! 

With  the  afternoon  he  and  Moufflon  trotted  down 
the  arcades  of  the  Uffizi  and  down  the  Lung'  Arno  to 
the  hotel  of  the  stranger,  and,  showing  the  stranger's 
card,  which  Lolo  could  not  read,  they  were  shown  at 
once  into  a' great  chamber,  all  gilding  and  fresco  and 
velvet  furniture. 

But  Lolo,  being  a  little  Florentine,  was  never  troubled 
by  externals,  or  daunted  by  mere  sofas  and  chairs  ;  he 
stood  and  looked  around  him  with  perfect  composure, 
and  Moufflon,  whose  attitude,  when  he  was  not  romp- 
ing, was  always  one  of  magisterial  gravity,  sat  on  his 
haunches  and  did  the  same. 


MOUFFLOU.  57 

Soon  the  foreigner  he  had  seen  in  the  forenoon 
entered  and  spoke  to  him,  and  led  him  into  another 
chamber,  where,  stretched  on  a  couch,  was  a  little 
wan-faced  boy  about  seven  years  old ;  a  pretty  boy, 
but  so  pallid,  so  wasted,  so  helpless.  This  poor  little 
boy  was  heir  to  a  great  name  and  a  great  fortune,  but 
all  the  science  in  the  world  could  not  make  him 
strong  enough  to  run  about  among  the  daisies,  or  able 
to  draw  a  single  breath  without  pain.  A  feeble  smile 
lit  up  his  face  as  he  saw  Moufflon  and  Lolo ;  then  a 
shadow  chased  it  away. 

"  Little  boy  is  lame  like  me,"  he  said,  in  a  tongue 
Lolo  did  not  understand. 

"  Yes,  but  he  is  a  strong  little  boy,  and  can  move 
about,  as  perhaps  the  suns  of  his  country  will  make 
you  do,"  said  the  gentleman,  who  was  the  poor  little 
boy's  father.  ''He  has  brought  you  his  poodle  to 
amuse  you.     What  a  handsome  dog !  is  it  not  ? " 

"  Oh,  hufflins !  "  said  the  poor  little  fellow,  stretch- 
ing out  his  wasted  hands  to  Moufflon,  who  submitted 
his  leonine  crest  to  the  caress. 

Then  Lolo  went  through  the  performance,  and 
Moufflon  acquitted  himself  ably  as  ever ;  and  the  little 
invalid  laughed  and  shouted  with  his  tiny  thin  voice, 
and  enjoyed  it  all  immensely,  and  rained  cakes  and 
biscuits  on  both  the  poodle  and  its  master.  Lolo 
crumped  the  pastries  with  willing  white  teeth,  and 
Moufflon  did  no  less.  Then  they  got  up  to  go,  and 
the  sick  child  on  the  couch  burst  into  fretful  lamenta^ 
tions  and  outcries. 


58  MOUFFLOTT. 

"  I  want  the  dog !  I  will  have  the  dog !  "  was  all 
he  kept  repeating. 

But  Lolo  did  not  know  what  he  said,  and  was  only 
sorry  to  see  him  so  unhappy. 

"  You  shall  have  the  dog  to-morrow,"  said  the 
gentleman,  to  pacify  his  little  son ;  and  he  hurried 
Lolo  and  Moufflon  out  of  the  room,  and  consigned 
them  to  a  servant,  having  given  Lolo  five  francs  this 
time. 

u  Why,  Moufflon,"  said  Lolo,  with  a  chuckle  of 
delight,  "  if  we  could  find  a  foreigner  every  day,  we 
could  eat  meat  at  supper,  Moufflou,  and  go  to  the 
theatre  every  evening !  " 

And  he  and  his  crutch  clattered  home  with  great 
eagerness  and  excitement,  and  Moufflon  trotted  on 
his  four  frilled  feet,  the  blue  bow  with  which  Bice 
had  tied  up  his  curls  on  the  top  of  his  head,  fluttering 
in  the  wind.  But,  alas!  even  his  five  francs  could 
bring  no  comfort  at  home.  He  found  his  whole  family 
wailing  and  mourning  in  utterly  inconsolable  distress. 

Tasso  had  drawn  his  number  that  morning,  and  the 
number  was  seven,  and  he  must  go  and  be  a  conscript 
for  three  years. 

The  poor  young  man  stood  in  the  midst  of  his 
weeping  brothers  and  sisters,  with  his  mother  leaning 
against  his  shoulder,  and  down  his  own  brown  cheeks 
the  tears  were  falling.  He  must  go,  and  lose  his 
place  in  the  public  gardens,  and  leave  his  people  to 
starve  as  they  might,  and  be  put  in  a  tomfool's  jacket, 
and  drafted   off   among  cursing   and   swearing  and 


MOUFFLOU.  59 

strange  faces,  friendless,  homeless,  miserable !  And 
the  mother,  —  what  would  become  of  the  mother  ? 

Tasso  was  the  best  of  lads  and  the  mildest.  He 
was  quite  happy  sweeping  up  the  leaves  in  the  long 
alleys  of  the  Cascine,  or  mowing  the  green  lawns 
under  the  ilex  avenues,  and  coming  home  at  supper- 
time  among  the  merry  little"  people  and  the  good 
woman  that  he  loved.  He  was  quite  contented ;  he 
wanted  nothing,  only  to  be  let  alone ;  and  they  would 
not  let  him  alone.  They  would  haul  him  away  to  put 
a  heavy  musket  in  his  hand  and  a  heavy  knapsack  on 
his  back,  and  drill  him,  and  curse  him,  and  make  him 
into  a  human  target,  a  live  popingay. 

No  one  had  any  heed  for  Lolo  and  his  five  francs, 
and  Moufflon,  understanding  that  some  great  sorrow 
had  fallen  on  his  friends,  sat  down  and  lifted  up  his 
voice  and  howled. 

Tasso  must  go  away !  —  that  was  all  they  under- 
stood. For  three  long  years  they  must  go  without 
the  sight  of  his  face,  the  aid  of  his  strength,  the 
pleasure  of  his  smile :  Tasso  must  go !  When  Lolo 
understood  the  calamity  that  had  befallen  them,  he 
gathered  Moufflon  up  against  his  breast,  and  sat  down, 
too,  on  the  floor  beside  him  and  cried  as  if  he  would 
never  stop  crying. 

There  was  no  help  for  it :  it  was  one  of  those  mis- 
fortunes which  are,  as  we  say  in  Italian,  like  a  tile 
tumbled  on  the  head.  The  tile  drops  from  a  height, 
and  the  poor  head  bows  under  the  unseen  blow. 
That  is  all. 


60  MOUFFLOU. 

"What  is  the  use  of  that?"  said  the  mother, 
passionately,  when  Lolo  showed  her  his  five  francs. 
"  It  will  not  buy  Tasso's  discharge." 

Lolo  felt  that  his  mother  was  cruel  and  unjust,  and 
crept  to  bed  with  Moufflou.  Moufflon  always  slept  on 
Lolo's  feet. 

The  next  morning  I/olo  got  up  before  sunrise,  and 
he  and  Moufflou  accompanied  Tasso  to  his  work  in 
the  Cascine. 

Lolo  loved  his  brother,  and  clung  to  every  moment 
whilst  they  could  still  be  together. 

"  Can  nothing  keep  you,  Tasso  ?  "  he  said,  despair- 
ingly, as  they  went  down  the  leafy  aisles,  whilst  the 
Arno  water  was  growing  golden  as  the  sun  rose. 

Tasso  sighed. 

"Nothing,  dear.  Unless  Gesu  would  send  me  a 
thousand  francs  to  buy  a  substitute." 

And  he  knew  he  might  as  well  have  said,  "  If  one 
could  coin  gold  ducats  out  of  the  sunbeams  on  Arno 
water." 

Lolo  was  very  sorrowful  as  he  lay  on  the  grass  in 
the  meadow  where  Tasso  was  at  work,  and  the  poodle 
lay  stretched  beside  him. 

When  Lolo  went  home  to  dinner  (Tasso  took  his 
wrapped  in  a  handkerchief),  he  found  his  mother  very 
agitated  and  excited.  She  was  laughing  one  moment, 
crying  the  next.  She  was  passionate  and  peevish, 
tender  and  jocose  by  turns ;  there  was  something 
forced  and  feverish  about  her  which  the  children  felt 
but  did  not  comprehend.     She  was  a  woman  of  not 


HE    GATHKRKD    MOUFFI.OU    UP    AGAINST    HIS    HRKAST    AND 
CKIED    AS    IF    HE    WOLLD    NEVEK    STOP.' 


J^OUFFLOU.  63 

very  much  intelligence,  and  she  had  a  secret,  and  she 
carried  it  ill,  and  knew  not  what  to  do  with  it ;  but 
they  could  not  tell  that.  They  only  felt  a  vague 
sense  of  disturbance  and  timidity  at  her  unwonted 
manner. 

The  meal  over  (it  was  only  bean  soup,  and  that  is 
soon  eaten),  the  mother  said  sharply  to  Lolo,  "  Your 
Aunt  Anita  wants  you  this  afternoon.  She  has  to  go 
out,  and  you  are  needed  to  stay  with  the  children :  be 
ofP  with  you." 

Lolo  was  an  obedient  child ;  he  took  his  hat  and 
jumped  up  as  quickly  as  his  halting  hip  would  let 
him.     He  called  Moufflon,  who  was  asleep. 

"  Leave  the  dog,"  said  his  mother,  sharply.  "  'Nita 
will  not  have  him  messing  and  carrying  mud  about 
her  nice  clean  rooms.  She  told  me  so.  Leave  him, 
I  say." 

"  Leave  Moufflon ! "  echoed  Lolo,  for  never  in  all 
Moufflon's  life  had  Lolo  parted  from  him.  Leave 
Moufflon !  He  stared  open-eyed  and  open-mouthed 
at  his  mother.     What  could  have  come  to  her  ? 

"  Leave  him,  I  say,"  she  repeated,  more  sharply 
than  ever.  "  Must  I  speak  twice  to  my  own  children  ? 
Be  off  with  you,  and  leave  the  dog,  I  say." 

And  she  clutched  Moufflon  by  his  long  silken  mane 
and  dragged  him  backwards,  whilst  with  the  other 
hand  she  thrust  out  of  the  door  Lolo  and  Bice. 

Lolo  began  to  hammer  with  his  crutch  at  the  door 
thus  closed  on  him ;  but  Bice  coaxed  and  entreated 
him. 


64  MOUFFLOU. 

"Poor  mother  has  been  so  worried  about  Tasso," 
she  pleaded.  "  And  what  harm  can  come  to  Mouf- 
flon ?  And  I  do  think  he  was  tired,  Lolo ;  the  Cas- 
cine  is  a  long  way  ;  and  it  is  quite  true  that  Aunt 
'Nita  never  liked  him." 

So  by  one  means  and  another  she  coaxed  her  brother 
away ;  and  they  went  almost  in  silence  to  where  their 
Aunt  Anita  dwelt,  which  was  across  the  river,  near  the 
dark  red  bell-shaped  dome  of  Santa  Spirito. 

It  was  true  that  her  aunt  had  wanted  them  to  mind 
her  room  and  her  babies  whilst  she  was  away  carrying 
home  some  lace  to  a  villa  outside  the  Roman  gate,  for 
she  was  a  lace-washer  and  clear-starcher  by  trade. 
There  they  had  to  stay  in  the  little  dark  room  with 
the  two  babies,  with  nothing  to  amuse  the  time  except 
the  clang  of  the  bells  of  the  church  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  the  voices  of  the  lemonade-sellers  shouting  in  the 
street  below.  Aunt  Anita  did  not  get  back  till  it  was 
more  than  dusk,  and  the  two  children  trotted  home- 
ward hand  in  hand,  Lolo's  leg  dragging  itself  painfully 
along,  for  without  Moufflon's  white  figure  dancing  on 
before  him  he  felt  very  tired  indeed.  It  was  pitch- 
dark  when  they  got  to  Or  San  Michele,  and  the  lamps 
burned  dully. 

Lolo  stumped  up  the  stairs  wearily,  with  a  vague, 
dull  fear  at  his  small  heart. 

"  Moufflon,  Moufflon  !  "  he  called.  Where  was  Mouf- 
flou  ?  Always  at  the  first  sound  of  his  crutch  the 
poodle  came  flying  toward  him.  "  Moufflon,  Mouf- 
flon ! "  he  called  all  the  way  up  the  long,  dark,  twist- 


MOUFFLOU.  65 

ing  stone  stair.  He  pushed  open  the  door,  and  he 
called  again,  "  Moufflou,  Moufflon  !  " 

But  no  dog  answered  to  his  call. 

"  Mother,  where  is  Moufflou  ? "  he  asked,  staring 
with  blinking,  dazzled  eyes  into  the  oil-lit  room  where 
his  mother  sat  knittingo  Tasso  was  not  then  home 
from  work.  His  mother  went  on  with  her  knitting ; 
there  was  an  uneasy  look  on  her  face. 

"  Mother,  what  have  you  done  with  Moufflou,  my 
Moufflou  ? "  said  Lolo,  with  a  look  that  was  almost 
stern  on  his  ten-year-old  face. 

Then  his  mother,  without  looking  up,  and  moving 
her  knitting-needles  very  rapidly,  said  : 

"  Moufflou  is  sold !  " 

And  little  Dina,  who  was  a  quick,  pert  child,  cried, 
with  a  shrill  voice  : 

"  Mother  has  sold  him  for  a  thousand  francs  to  the 
foreign  gentleman." 

"Sold  him!" 

Lolo  grew  white  and  grew  cold  as  ice ;  he  stam- 
mered, threw  up  his  hands  over  his  head,  gasped  a 
little  for  breath,  then  fell  down  in  a  dead  swoon,  his 
poor  useless  limb  doubled  under  him. 

When  Tasso  came  home  that  sad  night  and  found 
his  little  brother  shivering,  moaning,  and  half  deliri- 
ous, and  when  he  heard  what  had  been  done,  he  was 
sorely  grieved. 

"  Oh,  mother,  how  could  you  do  it  ? "  he  cried. 
"  Poor,  poor  Moufflou  !  and  Lolo  loves  him  so  !  " 

"  I  have  got  the  money,"  said  his  mother,  feverishly. 


66  MOUFFLOU. 

"  and  you  will  not  need  to  go  for  a  soldier :  we  can 
buy  your  substitute.  What  is  a  poodle,  that  you 
mourn  about  it  ?  We  can  get  another  poodle  for 
Lolo." 

"Another  will  not  be  MoufBou,"  said  Tasso,  and 
yet  was  seized  with  such  a  frantic  happiness  himself 
at  the  knowledge  that  he  would  not  need  go  to 
the  army,  that  he,  too,  felt  as  if  he  were  drunk  on 
new  wine,  and  had  not  the  heart  to  rebuke  his 
mother. 

"  A  thousand  francs !  "  he  muttered  ;  "  a  thousand 
francs !  Dio  mio  !  Who  could  ever  have  fancied  any- 
body would  have  given  such  a  price  for  a  common 
white  poodle  ?  One  would  think  the  gentleman  had 
bought  the  church  and  the  tabernacle  !  " 

*'  Fools  and  their  money  are  soon  parted,"  said  his 
mother,  with  cross  contempt. 

It  was  true  :  she  had  sold  Moufflon. 

The  English  gentleman  had  called  on  her  while 
Lolo  and  the  dog  had  been  in  the  Cascine,  and  had  said 
that  he  was  desirous  of  buying  the  poodle,  which  had 
so  diverted  his  sick  child  that  the  little  invalid  would 
not  be  comforted  unless  he  possessed  it.  Now,  at  any 
other  time  the  good  woman  would  have  sturdily  refused 
any  idea  of  selling  Moufflon ;  but  that  morning  the 
thousand  francs  which  would  buy  Tasso's  substitute 
were  for  ever  in  her  mind  and  before  her  eyes.  When 
she  heard  the  foreigner  her  heart  gave  a  great  leap, 
and  her  head  swam  giddily,  and  she  thought,  in  a 
spasm  of  longing,  —  if  she  could  get  those  thousand 


MOUFFLOU.  67 

francs  !  But  though  she  was  so  dizzy  and  so  upset 
she  retained  her  grip  on  her  native  Florentine  shrewd- 
ness. She  said  nothing  of  her  need  of  the  money  ; 
not  a  syllable  of  her  sore  distress.  On  the  contrary, 
she  was  coy  and  wary,  affected  great  reluctance  to 
part  with  her  pet,  invented  a  great  offer  made  for  him 
by  a  director  of  a  circus,  and  finally  let  fall  a  hint 
that  less  than  a  thousand  francs  she  could  never  take 
for  poor  Moufflon. 

The  gentleman  assented  with  so  much  willingness 
to  the  price  that  she  instantly  regretted  not  having 
asked  double.  He  told  her  that  if  she  would  take  the 
poodle  that  afternoon  to  his  hotel  the  money  should 
be  paid  to  her ;  so  she  despatched  her  children  after 
their  noonday  meal  in  various  directions,  and  herself 
took  Moufflon  to  his  doom.  She  could  not  believe  her 
senses  wnen  ten  hmid red-franc  notes  were  put  into 
her  hand.  She  scrawled  her  signature,  Rosina  Cala- 
bucci,  to  a  formal  receipt,  and  went  away,  leaving 
Moufflon  in  his  new  owner's  rooms,  and  hearing  his 
howls  and  moans  pursue  her  all  the  way  down  the 
staircase  and  out  into  the  air. 

She  was  not  easy  at  what  she  had  done. 

"  It  seemed,"  she  said  to  herself,  "  like  selling  a 
Christian." 

But  then  to  keep  her  eldest  son  at  home,  —  what 
a  joy  that  was !  On  the  whole,  she  cried  so  and 
laughed  so  as  she  went  down  the  Lung'  Arno  that  once 
or  twice  people  looked  at  her,  thi^iking  her  out  of  her 
senses,  and  a  guard  spoke  to  her  angrily. 


68  MOUFFLOU. 

Meanwhile,  Lolo  was  sick  and  delirious  with  grief. 
Twenty  times  he  got  out  of  his  bed  and  screamed  to 
be  allowed  to  go  with  Moufflou,  and  twenty  times  his 
mother  and  his  brothers  put  him  back  again  and  held 
him  down  and  tried  in  vain  to  quiet  him. 

The  child  was  beside  himself  with  misery.  "  Mouf- 
flon !  Moufflou  !  "  he  sobbed  at  every  moment ;  and  by 
night  he  was  in  a  raging  fever,  and  when  his  mother, 
frightened,  ran  and  called  in  the  doctor  of  the 
quarter,  that  worthy  shook  his  head  and  said  some- 
thing as  to  a  shock  of  the  nervous  system,  and  muttered 
a  long  word, — "  meningitis." 

Lolo  took  a  hatred  to  the  sight  of  Tasso,  and  thrust 
him  away,  and  his  mother,  too. 

"  It  is  for  you  Moufflou  is  sold,"  he  said,  with  his 
little  teeth  and  hands  tight  clinched. 

After  a  day  or  two  Tasso  felt  as  if  he  could  not  bear 
his  life,  and  went  down  to  the  hotel  to  see  if  the  foreign 
gentleman  would  allow  him  to  have  Moufflou  back  for 
half  an  hour  to  quiet  his  little  brother  by  a  sight  of 
him.  But  at  the  hotel  he  was  told  that  the  3Iilord 
Inglese  who  had  bought  the  dog  of  Rosina  Calabucci 
had  gone  that  same  night  of  the  purchase  to  Rome,  to 
Naples,  to  Palermo,  chi  sa  ? 

"  And  Moufflou  with  him  ? "  asked  Tasso. 

"  The  harhone  he  had  bought  went  with  him,"  said 
the  porter  of  the  hotel.  "  Such  a  beast !  Howl- 
ing, shrieking,  raging  all  the  day,  and  all  the  paint 
scratched  off  the  salon  door." 

Poor  Moufflou !     Tasso's  heart  was  heavy   as  he 


MOUFFLOU.  69 

heard  of  that  sad  helpless  misery  of  their  bartered 
favourite  and  friend. 

"  What  matter  ? "  said  his  mother,  fiercely,  when  he 
told  her.  "A  dog  is  a  dog.  They  will  feed  him 
better  than  we  could.  In  a  week  he  will  have  for- 
gotten—  cM!^^ 

But  Tasso  feared  that  Moufflon  would  not  forget. 
Lolo  certainly  would  not.  The  doctor  came  to  the 
bedside  twice  a  day,  and  ice  and  water  were  kept  on 
the  aching  hot  little  head  that  had  got  the  malady 
with  the  long  name,  and  for  the  chief  part  of  the 
time  Lolo  lay  quiet,  dull,  and  stupid,  breathing  heavily, 
and  then  at  intervals  cried  and  sobbed  and  shrieked 
hysterically  for  Moufflon. 

"  Can  you  not  get  what  he  calls  for  to  quiet  him 
with  a  sight  of  it?"  said  the  doctor.  But  that  was 
not  possible,  and  poor  Rosina  covered  her  head  with 
her  apron  and  felt  a  guilty  creature. 

"  Still,  you  will  not  go  to  the  army,"  she  said  to 
Tasso,  clinging  to  that  immense  joy  for  her  consola- 
tion. "  Only  think  !  we  can  pay  Guido  Squarcione  to 
go  for  you.  He  always  said  he  would  go  if  anybody 
would  pay  him.  Oh,  my  Tasso,  surely  to  keep  you  is 
worth  a  dog's  life  !  " 

"  And  Lolo's  ? "  said  Tasso,  gloomily.  "  Nay, 
mother,  it  works  ill  to  meddle  too  much  with  fate. 
I  drew  my  number  ;  I  was  bound  to  go.  Heaven 
would  have  made  it  up  to  you  somehow." 

"  Heaven  sent  me  the  foreigner ;  the  Madonna's  own 
self  sent  him  to  ease  a  mother's  pain,"  said  Rosina, 


70  MOUFFLOV. 

rapidly  and  angrily.  "  There  are  the  thousand  francs 
safe  to  hand  in  the  cassone,  and  what,  pray,  is  it  we 
miss  ?  Only  a  dog  like  a  sheep,  that  brought  gallons 
of  mud  in  with  him  every  time  it  rained,  and  ate  as 
much  as  any  one  of  you." 

"  But  Lolo  ?  "  said  Tasso,  under  his  breath. 

His  mother  was  so  irritated  and  so  tormented  by 
her  own  conscience  that  she  upset  all  the  cabbage 
broth  into  the  burning  charcoal. 

"  Lolo  was  always  a  little  fool,  thinking  of  nothing 
'but  the  church  and  the  dog  and  nasty  field-flowers," 
she  said,  angrily.  "  I  humoured  him  ever  too  much 
because  of  the  hurt  to  his  hip,  and  so  —  and  so  —  " 

Then  tlie  poor  soul  made  matters  worse  by  drop- 
ping her  tears  into  the  saucepan,  and  fanning  the 
charcoal  so  furiously  that  the  flame  caught  her  fan  of 
cane-leaves,  and  would  have  burned  her  arm  had  not 
Tasso  been  there. 

"  You  are  my  prop  and  safety  always.  Who  would 
not  have  done  what  I  did  ?  Not  Santa  Felicita 
herself,"  she  said,   with  a  great  sob. 

But  all  this  did  not  cure  poor  Lolo. 

The  days  and  the  weeks  of  the  golden  autumn 
weather  passed  away,  and  he  was  always  in  danger, 
and  the  small  close  room  where  he  slept  with  Sandro 
and  Beppo  and  Tasso  was  not  one  to  cure  such  an  ill- 
ness as  had  now  beset  him.  Tasso  went  to  his  work 
with  a  sick  heart  in  the  Cascine,  where  the  colchicum 
was  all  lilac  among  the  meadow  grass,  and  the  ashes 
and  elms  Were  taking  their  first  flush  of  the  coming 


MOUFFLOU,  71 

autumnal  change.  He  did  not  think  Lolo  would  ever 
get  well,  and  the  good  lad  felt  as  if  he  had  been  the 
murderer  of  his  little  brother. 

True,  he  had  had  no  hand  or  voice  in  the  sale  of 
Moufflou,  but  Moufflou  had  been  sold  for  his  sake.  It 
made  him  feel  half  guilty,  very  unhappy,  quite  un- 
worthy all  the  sacrifice  that  had  been  made  for  him. 
"  Nobody  should  meddle  with  fate,"  thought  Tasso, 
who  knew  his  grandfather  had  died  in  San  Bonifazio 
because  he  had  driven  himself  mad  over  the  dream- 
book  trying  to  get  lucky  numbers  for  the  lottery  and 
become  a  rich  man  at  a  stroke. 

It  was  rapture  indeed  to  know  that  he  was  free  of 
the  army  for  a  time  at  least,  that  he  might  go  on 
undisturbed  at  his  healthful  labour,  and  get  a  rise  in 
wages  as  time  went  on,  and  dwell  in  peace  with  his 
family,  and  perhaps  —  perhaps  in  time  earn  enough 
to  marry  pretty  flaxen-haired  Biondina,  the  daughter 
of  the  barber  in  the  piazzetta.  It  was  rapture  indeed  ; 
but  then  poor  Moufflou  !  —  and  poor,  poor  Lolo  !  Tasso 
felt  as  if  he  had  bought  his  own  exemption  by  seeing 
his  little  brother  and  the  good  dog  torn  in  pieces  and 
buried  alive  for  his  service. 

And  where  was  poor  Moufflou  ? 

Gone  far  away  somewhere  south  in  the  hurrying, 
screeching,  vomiting,  braying  train  that  it  made  Tasso 
giddy  only  to  look  at  as  it  rushed  by  the  green 
meadows  beyond  the  Cascine  on  its  way  to  the 
sea. 

"  If  he  could  see  the  dog  he  cries  so  for,  it  might 


72  MOUFFLOU. 

save  him,"  said  the  doctor,  who  stood  with  a  grave  face 
watching  Lolo. 

But  that  was  beyond  any  one's  power.  No  one 
could  tell  where  Moufflou  was.  He  might  be  carried 
away  to  England,  to  France,  to  Russia,  to  America,  — 
who  could  say  ?  They  did  not  know  where  his  pur- 
chaser had  gone.     Moufflou  even  might  be  dead. 

Tlie  poor  mother,  when  the  doctor  said  that,  went 
and  looked  at  the  ten  hundred-franc  notes  that  were 
once  like  angels'  faces  to  her,  and  said  to  them  :  — 

"  Oh,  you  children  of  Satan,  why  did  you  tempt  me  ? 
I  sold  the  poor,  innocent,  trustful  beast  to  get  you,  and 
now  my  child  is  dying !  " 

"  Her  eldest  son  would  stay  at  home,  indeed  ;  but  if 
this  little  lame  one  died !  Rosina  Calabucci  would 
have  given  up  the  notes  and  consented  never  to  own 
five  francs  in  her  life  if  only  she  could  have  gone  back 
over  the  time  and  kept  Moufflou,  and  seen  his  little 
master  running  out  with  him  into  the  sunshine. 

More  than  a  month  went  by,  and  Lolo  lay  in  the 
same  state,  his  yellow  hair  shorn,  his  eyes  dilated  and 
yet  stupid,  life  kept  in  him  by  a  spoonful  of  milk,  a 
lump  of  ice,  a  drink  of  lemon-water ;  always  mutter- 
ing, when  he  spoke  at  all,  "  Moufflou,  Moufflou,  dov^  ^ 
Moufflou  ? "  and  lying  for  days  together  in  somnolence 
and  unconsciousness,  with  the  fire  eating  at  his  brain 
and  the  weight  lying  on  it  like  a  stone. 

The  neighbours  were  kind,  and  brought  fruit  and 
the  like,  and  sat  up  with  him,  and  chattered  so  all  at 
once  in  one  continuous  brawl  that  they  were  enough 


MOUFFLOU.  .    73 

in  themselves  to  kill  him,  for  such  is  ever  the  Italian 
fashion  of  sympathy  in  all  illness. 

But  Lolo  did  not  get  well,  did  not  even  seem  to  see 
the  light  at  all,  or  to  distinguish  any  sounds  around 
him ;  and  the  doctor  in  plain  words  told  Rosina  Cala- 
bucci  that  her  little  boy  must  die.  Die,  and  the  church 
so  near  ?  She  could  not  believe  it.  Could  St.  Mark, 
and  St.  George,  and  the  rest  that  he  had  loved  so  do 
nothing  for  him  ?  No,  said  the  doctor,  they  could 
do  nothing;  the  dog  might  do  something,  since  the 
brain  had  so  fastened  on  that  one  idea ;  but  then  they 
had  sold  the  dog. 

"  Yes  ;  I  sold  him  !  "  said  the  poor  mother,  breaking 
into  floods  of  remorseful  tears. 

So  at  last  the  end  drew  so  nigh  that  one  twilight 
time  the  priest  came  out  of  the  great  arched  door  that 
is  next  St.  Mark,  with  the  Host  uplifted,  and  a  little 
acolyte  ringing  the  bell  before  it,  and  passed  across 
the  piazzetta,  and  went  up  the  dark  staircase  of 
Rosina*s  dwelling,  and  passed  through  the  weeping, 
terrified  children,  and  went  to  the  bedside  of  Lolo. 

Lolo  was  unconscious,  but  the  holy  man  touched 
his  little  body  and  limbs  with  the  sacred  oil,  and 
prayed  over  him,  and  then  stood  sorrowful  with 
bowed  head. 

Lolo  had  had  his  first  communion  in  the  summer, 
and  in  his  preparation  for  it  had  shown  an  intelli- 
gence and  devoutness  that  had  won  the  priest's  gentle 
heart. 

Standing  there,  the  holy  man  commended  the  inno- 


74    ,  MOUFFLOU. 

cent  soul  to  God.  It  was  the  last  service  to  be  rendered 
to  him  save  that  very  last  of  all  when  the  funeral  office 
should  be  read  above  his  little  grave  among  the  mil- 
lions of  nameless  dead  at  the  sepulchres  of  the  poor  at 
Trebbiano. 

All  was  still  as  the  priest's  voice  ceased ;  only  the 
sobs  of  the  mother  and  of  the  children  broke  the  still- 
ness as  they  kneeled  ;  the  hand  of  Biondina  had  stolen 
into  Tasso's. 

Suddenly,  there  was  a  loud  scuffling  noise ;  hurry- 
ing feet  came  patter,  patter,  patter  up  the  stairs,  a 
ball  of  mud  and  dust  flew  over  the  heads  of  the 
kneeling  figures,  fleet  as  the  wind  Moufflon  dashed 
through  the  room  and  leaped  upon  the  bed. 

Lolo  opened  his  heavy  eyes,  and  a  sudden  light 
of  consciousness  gleamed  in  them  like  a  sunbeam. 
"  Moufflon ! "  he  murmured,  in  his  little  thin  faint 
voice.  The  dog  pressed  close  to  his  breast  and  kissed 
his  wasted  face. 

Moufflon  was  come  home ! 

And  Lolo  came  home,  too,  for  death  let  go  its  hold 
upon  him.  Little  by  little,  very  faintly  and  flicker- 
ingly  and  very  uncertainly  at  the  first,  life  returned 
to  the  poor  little  body,  and  reason  to  the  tormented, 
heated  little  brain.  Moufflon  was  his  physician ; 
Moufflon,  who,  himself  a  skeleton  under  his  matted 
curls,  would  not  stir  from  his  side  and  looked  at  him 
all  day  long  with  two  beaming  brown  eyes  full  of 
unutterable  love. 

Lolo  was  happy ;  he  asked  no  questions,  —  was  too 


t 


^u-^N  "v-^ 


FLEET  AS  THE  WIND  MOUFFLOU  DASHED  THROUGH  THE 
ROOM." 


MOUFFLOU.  77 

weak,  indeed,  even  to  wonder.  He  had  Moufflon; 
that  was  enough. 

Alas !  though  they  dared  not  say  so  in  his  hearing, 
it  was  not  enough  for  his  elders.  His  mother  and 
Tasso  knew  that  the  poodle  had  been  sold  and  paid 
for ;  that  they  could  lay  no  claim  to  keep  him ;  and 
that  almost  certainly  his  purchaser  would  seek  him 
out  and  assert  his  indisputable  right  to  him.  And 
then  how  would  Lolo  ever  bear  that  second  parting  ? 
—  Lolo,  so  weak  that  he  weighed  no  more  than  if  he 
had  been  a  little  bird. 

Moufflon  had,  no  doubt,  travelled  a  long  distance 
and  suffered  much.  He  was  but  skin  and  bone ;  he 
bore  the  marks  of  blows  and  kicks ;  his  once  silken 
hair  was  all  discoloured  and  matted ;  he  had,  no 
doubt,  travelled  far.  But  then  his  purchaser  would 
be  sure  to  ask  for  him,  soon  or  late,  at  his  old  home ; 
and  then  ?  Well,  then  if  they  did  not  give  him  up 
themselves,  the  law  would  make  them. 

Rosina  Calabucci  and  Tasso,  though  they  dared  say 
nothing  before  any  of  the  children,  felt  their  hearts  in 
their  mouths  at  every  step  on  the  stair,  and  the  first 
interrogation  of  Tasso  every  evening,  when  he  came 
from  his  work.  Was, "  Has  any  one  come  for  Moufflon  ?  " 
For  ten  days  no  one  came,  and  their  first  terrors  lulled 
a  little. 

On  the  eleventh  morning,  a  feast-day,  on  which 
Tasso  was  not  going  to  his  labours  in  the  Cascine, 
there  came  a  person,  with  a  foreign  look,  who  said 
the  words  they  so  much  dreaded  to  hear :   "  Has  the 


78  MOUFFLOU. 

poodle  that  you  sold  to  an  English  gentleman  come 
back  to  you  ?  " 

Yes  ;  his  English  master  claimed  him  ! 

The  servant  said  that  they  had  missed  the  dog  in 
Rome  a  few  days  after  buying  him  and  taking  him 
there ;  that  he  had  been  searched  for  in  vain,  and 
that  his  master  had  thought  it  possible  the  animal 
might  have  found  his  way  back  to  his  old  home ; 
there  had  been  stories  of  such  wonderful  sagacity  in 
dogs ;  anyhow,  he  had  sent  for  him  on  the  chance ; 
he  was  himself  back  on  the  Lung'  Arno.  The  ser- 
vant pulled  from  his  pocket  a  chain,  and  said  his 
orders  were  to  take  the  poodle  away  at  once ;  the 
little  sick  gentleman  had  fretted  very  much  about  his 
loss. 

Tasso  heard  in  a  very  agony  of  despair.  To  take 
Moufflon  away  now  would  be  to  kill  Lolo,  —  Lolo,  so 
feeble  still,  so  unable  to  understand,  so  passionately 
alive  to  every  sight  and  sound  of  Moufflon,  lying  for 
hours  together  motionless  with  his  hand  buried  in  the 
poodle's  curls,  saying  nothing,  only  smiling  now  and 
then,  and  murmuring  a  word  or  two  in  Moufflon's  ear. 

"  The  dog  did  come  home,"  said  Tasso,  at  length,  in 
a  low  voice  ;  "  angels  must  have  shown  him  the  road, 
poor  beast !  From  Rome  !  Only  to  think  of  it,  from 
Rome  !  And  he  a  dumb  thing !  I  tell  you  he  is  here, 
honestly ;  so  will  you  not  trust  me  just  so  far  as  this  ? 
Will  you  let  me  go  with  you  and  speak  to  the  English 
lord  before  you  take  the  dog  away  ?  I  have  a  little 
brother  sorely  ill  —  " 


MOUFFLOU.  79 

He  could  not  speak  more,  for  tears  that  choked  his 
voice. 

At  last  the  messenger  agreed  so  far  as  this.  Tasso 
might  go  first  and  see  the  master,  but  he  would  stay 
here  and  have  a  care  they  did  not  spirit  the  dog  away, 
—  "  for  a  thousand  francs  were  paid  for  him,"  added 
the  man,  "  and  a  dog  that  can  come  all  the  way  from 
Rome  by  itself  must  be  an  uncanny  creature." 

Tasso  thanked  him,  went  up-stairs,  was  thankful 
that  his  mother  was  at  mass  and  could  not  dispute 
with  him,  took  the  ten  hundred-franc  notes  from  the 
old  oak  cassone,  and  with  them  in  his  breast-pocket 
walked  out  into  the  air.  He  was  but  a  poor  working 
lad,  but  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  do  an  heroic 
deed,  for  self-sacrifice  is  always  heroic.  He  went 
straightway  to  the  hotel  where  the  English  milord  was, 
and  when  he  had  got  there  remembered  that  still  he 
did  not  know  the  name  of  Moufflon's  owner ;  but  the 
people  of  the  hotel  knew  him  as  Rosina  Calabucci's 
son,  and  guessed  what  he  wanted,  and  said  the  gentle- 
man who  had  lost  the  poodle  was  within  up-stairs  and 
they  would  tell  him. 

Tasso  waited  some  half-hour  with  his  heart  beating 
sorely  against  the  packet  of  hundred-franc  notes.  At 
last  he  was  beckoned  up-stairs,  and  there  he  saw  a 
foreigner  with  a  mild  fair  face,  and  a  very  lovely  lady, 
and  a  delicate  child  who  was  lying  on  a  couch.  "  Mouf- 
flon !  Where  is  Moufflon  ? "  cried  the  little  child,  im- 
patiently, as  he  saw  the  youth  enter. 

Tasso  took  his  hat  off,  and  stood  in  the  doorway, 


80  MOUFFLOU. 

an  embrowned,  healthy,  not  ungraceful  figure,  in  his 
working-clothes  of  rough  blue  stuff. 

"If  you  please,  most  illustrious,"  he  stammered, 
"  poor  Moufflon  has  come  home." 

The  child  gave  a  cry  of  delight ;  the  gentleman  and 
lady  one  of  wonder.  Come  home  !  All  the  way  from 
Rome ! 

"  Yes,  he  has,  most  illustrious,"  said  Tasso,  gaining 
courage  and  eloquence  ;  "  and  now  I  want  to  beg  some- 
thing of  you.  We  are  poor,  and  I  drew  a  bad  number, 
and  it  was  for  that  my  mother  sold  Moufflou.  For 
myself,  I  did  not  know  anything  of  it ;  but  she  thought 
she  would  buy  my  substitute,  and  of  course  she  could ; 
but  Moufflou  is  come  home,  and  my  little  brother  Lolo, 
the  little  boy  your  most  illustrious  first  saw  playing 
with  the  poodle,  fell  ill  of  the  grief  of  losing  Mouf- 
flon, and  for  a  month  has  lain  saying  nothing  sensible, 
but  only  calling  for  the  dog,  and  my  old  grandfather 
died  of  worrying  himself  mad  over  the  lottery  num- 
bers, and  Lolo  was  so  near  dying  that  the  Blessed  Host 
had  been  brought,  and  the  holy  oil  had  been  put  on 
him,  when  all  at  once  there  rushes  in  Mouftlou,  skin 
and  bone,  and  covered  with  mud,  and  at  the  sight  of 
him  Lolo  comes  back  to  his  senses,  and  that  is  now 
ten  days  ago,  and  though  Lolo  is  still  as  weak  as  a 
new-born  thing,  he  is  always  sensible,  and  takes  what 
we  give  him  to  eat,  and  lies  always  looking  at  Mouf- 
flou, and  smiling,  and  saying,  '  Moufflou !  Moufflou  ! ' 
and,  most  illustrious,  I  know  well  you  have  bought  the 
dog,  and  the  law  is  with  you,  and  by  the  law  you 


MOUFFLOU.  81 

claim  it ;  but  I  thought  perhaps,  as  Lolo  loves  him  so, 
you  would  let  us  keep  the  dog,  and  would  take  back 
the  thousand  francs,  and  myself  I  will  go  and  be  a 
soldier,  and  heaven  will  take  care  of  them  all  some- 
how." 

Then  Tasso,  having  said  all  this  in  one  breathless, 
monotonous  recitative,  took  the  thousand  francs  out 
of  his  breast-pocket  and  held  them  out  timidly  toward 
the  foreign  gentleman;  who  motioned  them  aside  and 
stood  silent. 

"  Did  you  understand,  Victor,"  he  said,  at  last,  to 
his  little  son. 

The  child  hid  his  face  in  his  cushion. 

"  Yes,  I  did  understand  something :  let  Lolo  keep 
him  ;  Moufflon  was  not  happy  with  me." 

But  he  burst  out  crying  as  he  said  it. 

Moufflon  had  run  away  from  him. 

Moufflon  had  never  loved  him,  for  all  his  sweet  cakes 
and  fond  caresses  and  platefuls  of  delicate  savoury 
meats.  Moufflon  had  run  away  and  found  his  own 
road  over  two  hundred  miles  and  more  to  go  back  to 
some  little  hungry  children,  who  never  had  enough  to 
eat  themselves,  and  so,  certainly,  could  never  give 
enough  to  eat  to  the  dog.  Poor  little  boy!  He  was 
so  rich  and  so  pampered  and  so  powerful,  and  yet  he 
could  never  make  Moufflon  love  him ! 

Tasso,  who  understood  nothing  that  was  said,  laid 
the  ten  hundred-franc  notes  down  on  a  table  near  him. 

"  If  you  would  take  them,  most  illustrious,  and  give 
me  back  what  my  mother  wrote  when  she  sold  Mouf- 


82  MOUFFLOU. 

flou,"  he  said,  timidly,  "  I  would  pray  for  you  night 
and  day,  and  Lolo  would,  too ;  and  as  for  the  dog,  we 
will  get  a  puppy  and  train  him  for  your  little  signorino  ; 
they  can  all  do  tricks,  more  or  less,  it  comes  by  nature ; 
and  as  for  me,  I  will  go  to  the  army  willingly  ;  it  is 
not  right  to  interfere  with  fate ;  my  old  grandfather 
died  mad  because  he  would  try  to  be  a  rich  man,  by 
dreaming  about  it  and  pulling  destiny  by  the  ears,  as 
if  she  were  a  kicking  mule  ;  only,  I  do  pray  of  you, 
do  not  take  away  Moufflon.  And  to  think  he  trotted 
all  those  miles  and  miles,  and  you  carried  him  by  train, 
too,  and  he  never  could  have  seen  the  road,  and  he  has 
no  power  of  speech  to  ask  —  " 

Tasso  broke  down  again  in  his  eloquence,  and  drew 
the  back  of  his  hand  across  his  wet  eyelashes. 

The  English  gentleman  was  not  altogether  un- 
moved. 

"  Poor  faithful  dog  !  "  he  said,  with  a  sigh.  "  1  am 
afraid  we  were  very  cruel  to  him,  meaning  to  be  kind. 
No ;  we  will  not  claim  him,  and  I  do  not  think  you 
should  go  for  a  soldier ;  you  seem  so  good  a  lad,  and 
your  mother  must  need  you.  Keep  the  money,  my 
boy,  and  in  payment  you  shall  train  up  the  puppy 
you  talk  of,  and  bring  him  to  my  little  boy.  I  will 
come  and  see  your  mother  and  Lolo  to-morrow.  All 
the  way  from  Rome  !  What  wonderful  sagacity  !  what 
matchless  fidelity  !  '^ 

You  can  imagine,  without  any  telling  of  mine,  the 
joy  that  reigned  in  Moufflon's  home  when  Tasso  re- 


MOUFFLOU,  83 

turned  thither  with  the  money  and  the  good  tidings 
both.  His  substitute  was  bought  without  a  day's  de- 
lay, and  Lolo  rapidly  recovered.  As  for  Moufflon,  he 
could  never  tell  them  his  troubles,  his  wanderings,  his 
difficulties,  his  perils;  he  could  never  tell  them  by 
what  miraculous  knowledge  he  had  found  his  way 
across  Italy,  from  the  gates  of  Rome  to  the  gates  of 
Florence.  But  he  soon  grew  plump  again,  and 
merry  and  his  love  for  Lolo  was  yet  greater  than 
before. 

By  the  winter  all  the  family  went  to  live  on  an 
estate  near  Spezia  that  the  English  gentleman  had 
purchased,  and  there  Moufflon  was  happier  than  ever. 
The  little  English  boy  is  gaining  strength  in  the  soft 
air,  and  he  and  Lolo  are  great  friends,  and  play  with 
Moufflon  and  the  poodle  puppy  half  the  day  upon  the 
sunny  terraces  and  under  the  green  orange  boughs. 
Tasso  is  one  of  the  gardeners  there ;  he  will  have  to 
serve  as  a  soldier  probably  in  some  category  or 
another,  but  he  is  safe  for  the  time,  and  is  happy. 
Lolo,  whose  lameness  will  always  exempt  him  from 
military  service,  when  he  grows  to  be  a  man  means 
to  be  a  florist,  and  a  great  one.  He  has  learned  to 
read,  as  the  first  step  on  the  road  of  his  ambition. 

"  But  oh,  Moufflon,  how  did  you  find  your  way 
home  ? "  he  asks  the  dog  a  hundred  times  a  week. 

How  indeed ! 

No  one  ever  knew  how  Moufflon  had  made  that 
long  journey  on  foot,  so  many  weary  miles ;  but  be- 
yond a  doubt  he  had  done  it  alone  and  unaided,  for  if 


84  MOUFFLOU. 

any  one  had  helped  him  they  would  have  come  home 
with  him  to  claim  the  reward. 

And  that  you  may  not  wonder  too  greatly  at  Mouf- 
flou's  miraculous  journey  on  his  four  bare  feet,  I  will 
add  here  two  facts  known  to  friends  of  mine,  of 
whose  truthfulness  there  can  be  no  doubt. 

One  concerns  a  French  poodle  who  was  purchased 
in  Paris  by  the  friend  of  my  friend,  and  brought  all 
the  way  from  Paris  to  Milan  by  train.  In  a  few  days 
after  his  arrival  in  Milan  the  poodle  was  missing ; 
and  nothing  more  was  heard  or  known  of  him  until 
many  weeks  later  his  quondam  owner  in  Paris,  on 
opening  his  door  one  morning,  found  the  dog  stretched 
dying  on  the  threshold  of  his  old  home. 

That  is  one  fact;  not  a  story,  mind  you,  a  fact. 

The  other  is  related  to  me  by  an  Italian  nobleman, 
who  in  his  youth  belonged  to  the  Guardia  Nobile  of 
Tuscany.  That  brilliant  corps  of  elegant  gentlemen 
owned  a  regimental  pet,  a  poodle  also,  a  fine  merry 
and  handsome  dog  of  its  kind ;  and  the  officers  all 
loved  and  made  much  of  him,  except,  alas !  the  com- 
mandant of  the  regiment,  who  hated  him,  because 
when  the  officers  were  on  parade  or  riding  in  escort 
the  poodle  was  sure  to  be  jumping  and  frisking  about 
in  front  of  them.  It  is  difficult  to  see  where  the 
harm  of  this  was,  but  this  odious  old  martinet  vowed 
vengeance  against  the  dog,  and,  being  of  course  all- 
powerful  in  his  own  corps,  ordered  the  exile  from 
Florence  of  the  poor  fellow.  He  was  sent  to  a  farm 
at  Prato,  twenty  miles  off,  along  the  hills ;  but  very 


MOUFFLOU.  85 

soon  he  found  his  way  back  to  Florence.  He  was 
then  sent  to  Leghorn,  forty  miles  off,  but  in  a  week's 
time  had  returned  to  his  old  comrades.  He  was 
then,  by  order  of  his  unrelenting  foe,  shipped  to  the 
island  of  Sardinia.  How  he  did  it  no  one  ever  could 
tell,  for  he  was  carried  safely  to  Sardinia  and  placed 
inland  there  in  kind  custody,  but  in  some  wonderful 
way  the  poor  dog  must  have  found  out  the  sea  and 
hidden  himself  on  board  a  returning  vessel,  for  in  a 
month's  time  from  his  exile  to  the  island  he  was  back 
again  among  his  comrades  in  Florence.  Now,  what 
I  have  to  tell  you  almost  breaks  my  heart  to  say,  and 
will,  I  think,  quite  break  yours  to  hear :  alas !  the 
brute  of  a  commandant,  untouched  by  such  marvellous 
cleverness  and  faithfulness,  was  his  enemy  to  the 
bitter  end,  and,  in  inexorable  hatred,  had  Mm  shot! 
Oh,  when  you  grow  to  manhood  and  have  power,  use 
it  with  tenderness ! 


THE  END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

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